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COPyRIGKT DEPOSIT. 




On the Coulterville Rosul tliroiiKli ^lert-etl (Jrove of Hi;;; Trees 



ILLUSTRATED BOOKS BY JOHN H. WILLIAMS 

"The Mountain That Was *God"' 
"The Guardians of the Columbia" 



"The Canoe and The Saddle" 

BY THEODORE WINTHROP 

to which are now first added his Western Letters 

AND Journals. Edited with an Introduction 

and Notes by John H. Williams. 



'There is no death; love paid the debt; 
Tho' moons may wane and men forget, 
The mountain's heart beats on for aye; 
JVJio truly loved us cannot die." 



And so I wait, nor fear the tide 
That comes so swiftly on to hide 
My little light. The mountains glow; 
I have their promise, and I know. 

— Richardson : "The Promise of tlie Sierra." 



YO SEMITE 

and Its HIGH SIERRA 



By JOHN H.WILLIAMS 

Author of "THE MOUNTAIN THAT WAS 'GOD" 
"THE GUARDIANS OF THE COLUMBIA" etc. 



WITH MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS 

INCLUDING EIGHT COLOR PLATES FROM 

PAINTINGS BY CHRIS JORGENSEN 



TACOMA AND SAN FRANCISCO 

JOHN H. WILLIAMS 

1914 



•To l^ 



f^ 




The "Washington" and "Lincoln," Giant Sequoias in 
Mariposa Grove. 



COPVRIQHT, 1914, 91 JOHN H. WILLIAMS 



JAN -i^ 1915 
©CI,A393365 



«. V.-..-'' " 



'-^•si*te,'';':.--;.:«*Wl 




On the Suiniiiit of CIouiLs Rest, lookinjz: .soutliea.st over I^ittle Voseniite and the Merced 

Cnuon to Mt. Clark. 



THE SIERRA CLUB 

THIS VOLUME ABOUT A NOBLE REGION 

WHICH IT HAS LABORED TO CONSERVE AND MAKE ACCESSIBLE 

IS CORDIALLY DEDICATED 



Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's 
nothing else to gaze on, 
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore, 
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the bHnding 
sunsets blazon, 
Black canons where the rapids rip and roar? 
***** 
Have you seen God in His splendors, heard the text 
that Nature renders, — 
You'll never hear it in the family pew, — 
The simple things, the true things, the silent men 
who do things ? 
Then listen to the Wild — it's calling you. 

— Robert W. Service. 




starting; for the Ascent of Mt. Lyell. 




North Ddiiie, Hojal Art-lit's and Waslilnston Coluuiu, Meeu fruiii 
the Merced River. The concentric formation in tlie granite, 
which i.s characteristic of tlie Yoseniite region, is nowhere 
better sliown. Tlie imposing architectural aspect o£ this 
group, as if it were tlie ruins of some vast, decaying me- 
illeval cathedral, with crumbling arches and broken cam- 
panile, makes it the most Interesting rock feature in the 
Valley. 




The Half Dome, seen from the Overlinnging Rork nt Glacier Point, more than liulf a mile 

above tlie floor of Yosemite. 



FOREWORD 



The present addition to my series about the great mountains of the West will serve 
a happy purpose if it does no more than to gain new readers for the splendid books on 
Yosemite that have preceded it. One who follows in the footsteps of J. D. Whitney, 
Clarence King, Galen Clark, John Muir, and Smeaton Chase must needs enter upon his 
task with diffidence. Nevertheless, it is largely a new work that I have undertaken, 
namely, to describe and exhibit, not merely the famous Yosemite Valley, but the entire 
Yosemite National Park, so far as may be possible, by the aid of telling pictures. The 
field is so vast, its mountains, canons, lakes, waterfalls, and forests are so important and 
spectacular, that even the unprecedented number of illustrations given here can only 
suggest its riches of wonder and beauty. In order to make room for the largest number 
of views, I have confined my text to those matters which persons visiting Yosemite for 
the first time may naturally wish to know, — an outline of the great physical features of 
the Yosemite country and their causes, the story of its native inhabitants and their 
worthy but pathetically hopeless fight to hold their alpine fastness, and the increasing 
facilities for the enjoyment of its renowned valleys and equally inviting highlands. I 
shall feel it no defect in this brief essay if among my readers some Oliver Twist may 
perchance ask for more! 

The choosing of more than two hundred illustrations from many thousands of photo- 
graphs involved no little labor. Much of the district was, until lately, very inadequately 
photographed. Yosemite Valley has long been the best illustrated scenic spot in America, 
but the wonderful High Sierra back of it has been surprisingly neglected by the profes- 
sional photographers. Fortunately for this book, however, the large membership of the 
Sierra Club includes many expert amateurs, and the club's different expeditions into the 
mountains have produced a multitude of photographs that are equal to the best pro- 
fessional work. My first acknowledgment must therefore be to the photographers among 
my fellow-members for the unanimity with which they have placed their negatives at my 
disposal. Without such help, it would have been possible to show little more than the 
beaten paths of Yosemite Valley and the Big Tree Groves. I a,m also indebted to the pas- 
senger departments of the Southern Pacific, Santa Fe and Yosemite Valley Railways for 
many fine photographs; to the professional photographers, Messrs. Fiske, Pillsbury, Tib- 
bitts, Boysen and others, for their interest and cooperation, and to Mr. M. M. O'Shaugh- 
nessy, City Engineer of San Francisco, for invaluable photographs of Hetch Hetchy. 



lO 



FOREWORD 



Thanks are also due to the directors of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco for per- 
mission to reproduce Mr. Chris Jcirgensen's spirited painting of Yosemite from Inspira- 
tion Point. The book is much enriched by this picture and by the others painted by Mr. 
Jorgensen especially for it. 

Mr. William E. Colby, the Sierra Club's untiring secretary, has kindly read proofs, 
and aided me greatly with his expert counsel. Prof. C. A. Kofoid and Prof. Willis Linn 
Jepson, of the University of California, Rev. Joseph S. Swain, of Cambridge, Mass., Mr. 
Russ Avery, of Los Angeles, Mr. Mark A. Daniels, of San Francisco, Superintendent of the 
National Parks, Messrs. Herbert Bashford and Homer T. Miller, of the same city, Miss 
Mary A. Byrne, of the San Francisco Public Library, and Mr. John B. Kaiser, of the 
Tacoma Public Library, have made me their debtor by many courtesies. I must also 
thank the Houghton-Mifflin Company, of Boston; the Century Company, of New York, and 
the Blair-Murdock Company and Mr. A. M. Robertson, of San Francisco, for liberty to 
quote from copyrighted works of Muir, Burt, Chase, Symmes, Sterling and Richardson. 

This book is an acknowledgment of a long-standing debt to the Sierra. Years ago, 
while a resident of California, I became a lover of her mountains. It has since been my 
good fortune to study other great mountain districts, and to learn that each has its own 
special inspiration; but on returning to the Yosemite upland after a decade of absence, 
I have still found in its nobly sculptured heights and gentle valleys a peculiar and lasting 
charm possessed by no other wild landscape, American or European, with which I am ac- 
quainted,— a mingling of sublimity and tenderness that should make it the joy of all 
Americans, and the best-guarded treasure of California. 

"With frontier strength ye stand your ground; 
With grand content ye circle round. 
Tumultuous silence for all sound, . . . 
Like some vast fleet. 

Sailing through winter's cold and summer's heat; 
Still holding on your high emprise, ' 

Until ye find a home amid the skies." 

Tacoma, Nov. 15, 1914. 




Jack Main Cafion and Wllmer I^ake, north of Hetch Hetcliy Valley. 




L.iinc1i Time on the Tuolumne, at tlie Sierra Club's Camp near Soda Springs. 



CONTENTS 



I. THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 17 

II. THE CANON OF YOSEMITE 61 

III. ON THE CALIFORNIA SKY-LINE 93 

IV. TUOLUMNE GRAND CANON AND HETCH HETCHY 11.^ 

V. THE "KING OF THE FOREST" 137 

NOTES 143 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The * indicates engravings from copyrighted photographs, 
illustration. 



See notice under the 



FOUR-COLOR HALFTONES 

From paintings by Chris Jorgensen. 

The Caiion of Yosemite By courtesy of the Bohemian Club 4 

Cathedral Rocks and Spires 19 

Yosemite Falls, seen from the Merced Meadows 24 

Cascades at the Head of Happy Isles 41 

Half Dome in the Alpen-Glow 60 

Vernal Fall 77 

Mt. Lyell and its Glacier HI 

In Mariposa Grove 130 



ONE-COLOR HALFTONES. 

Title 

On the Coulterville Road 

"Washington" and "Lincoln" Trees, Mariposa Grove . 

On the Summit of Clouds Rest 

Starting for the Ascent of Mt. Lyell 

Royal Arches and the Merced River 

Half Dome, from Overhanging Rock, Glacier Point . 

Jack Main Canon 

Lunch Time on the Tuolumne 

The Gates of Yosemite 

Regulation Peak and Rodgers Lake 



Photographer Page 

S. A. Gray 2 

H. C. Tibbitts 6 

Pillsbury Picture Co. 7 

Pillsburv Picture Co. 7 

H. C. Tibbitts S 

H. C. Tibbitts 9 

J. F. Kinman 10 

Pillsbury Picture Co. 11 

Pillsbury Picture Co. 16 

J. F. Kinman 17 



12 ILLUSTRATIONS 

Title Photographer Page 

Returning from Summit of Mt. Hoffman Dr. Edward Gray 17 

Upper Yosemite Fall Arthur W. Wilding 18 

Bridal Veil Fall Pillsbury Picture Co. 20 

Sentinel Rock (2) Fiske and Pillsbury 21 

A Glacier Landscape: Tuolumne Canon C. H. Hamilton 22 

Another Glacier Landscape: Mt. Starr King, etc. . . . George R. King 2 2 

El Capitan, from East Side George Fiske 2 3 

First View of Lyell and its Neighbors Prof. Everett Shepardson 25 

White Cascade, in Tuolumne River Walter LeRoy Huber 25 

Indian Grist-Mill George R. King 2 6 

Snow-Creek Falls Lena M. Reddington 26 

Three Brothers H. C. Tibbitts 2 7 

The Domes in a Winter Storm Pillsbury Picture Co. 28 

Two North-side Lakes (2) J. F. Kinman 29 

"Apron" and Glacial Tarn, in Little Yosemite Hazel E. Roberts 29 

Cathedral Peak Walter LeRoy Huber 30 

Dome at Head of Tenaya Lake Pillsbury Picture Co. 30 

View East from Glacier Point J. T. Boysen 31 

The "Governor Tod" Group Pillsbury Picture Co. 32 

A Study in Clouds and Mountains Clinton C. Clarke 33 

Buttercups Following Retreat of the Snow Clinton C. Clarke 33 

Washburn Lake J. T. Boysen 34 

North Dome, seen from Happy Isles H. C. Tibbitts 3 4 

The Tuolumne Grand Canon Walter LeRoy Huber 35 

The Terraced Walls of Hetch Hetchy Pillsbury Picture Co. 36 

Giant Sequoias at Cabin in Mariposa Grove H. C. Tibbitts 37 

View South from Kuna Crest Walter LeRoy Huber 38 

White Firs on Eagle Peak Trail Prof. George J. Young 38 

Mt. Dana, seen from Tioga Lake H. E. Bailey 39 

Sugar Pine Loaded with Cones George R. King 40 

Crossing Cold Canon Meadows Ruth I. Dyar 40 

View down from Clouds Rest J. T. Boysen 42 

Yosemite Squaw, with Papoose J. T. Boysen 43 

Polemonium near Parker Pass Rose M. Higley 43 

Mono Pass; with Bloody Canon and Mono Lake (2) . . Francis P. Farquhar 44 

♦Happy Hours! (Deer in the Park) J. T. Boysen 44 

Sardine Lake in Bloody Canon J. T. Boysen 45 

Mt. Hoffman, from Snow Flat on the Tioga Road .... Philip S. Carlton 45 

Yosemite Valley, seen from Yosemite Falls Trail . . . George Fiske 46 

Distinguished Visitors to the Grizzly Giant Pillsbury Picture Co. 46 

Western End of Yosemite, from Union Point George Fiske 47 

Indian Acorn Cache H. C. Tibbitts 48 

Tenaya Peak, with Tenaya Lake Pillsbury Picture Co. 48 

In Tenaya Canon (2) Prof. J. N. Le Conte 49 

Tenaya Lake J. T. Boysen 50 

Gates of Tenaya Caiion in Winter George Fiske 51 

South Merced Valley, from Lookout Point J. T. Boysen 52 

A Yosemite Wood-Gatherer George Fiske 52 

Mirror Lake and Mt. Watkins Pillsbury Picture Co. 53 

Yosemite Indian Basket-Maker J. T. Boysen 54 

"Umbrella Tree" George Fiske 54 

Wild Flowers beneath the Royal Arches Pillsbury Picture Co. 55 

The "Forest Queen" in the Mariposa Grove J. T. Boysen 56 

*"Watch Me!" (Bear Cub) J. T. Boysen 56 

*0n the Overhanging Rock in Winter Pillsbury Picture Co. 57 

Blue Jay in Merced Canon Prof. Everett Shepardson 57 

John Muir in Hetch Hetchy George R. King 58 

Ready for the Trails H. C. Tibbitts 58 

Tenaya Canon and Half Dome, from Glacier Point . . . George Fiske 59 

Merced River and the Forest in Yosemite H. C. Tibbitts 61 

Lost Arrow Trail H. C. Tibbitts 61 

Chilnualna Falls, near Wawona J- T. Boysen 62 

"New England Bridge," at Wawona George Fiske 62 

Bridal Veil Meadow H. C. Tibbitts 63 



ILLUSTRATIONS 1 3 

Title Photographer Page 

On Wawona Road George Fiske 63 

The Merced River above El Portal Pillsbury Picture Co. 64 

Cascade Falls J. T. Boysen 65 

Bridal Veil Fall in Early Winter George Fiske 66 

Winter Sports in Yosemite Philip S. Carlton 66 

El Capitan and Three Brothers Pillsbury Picture Co. 67 

A Glimpse of North Dome George Fiske 67 

North Wall of Yosemite Valley Pillsbury Picture Co. 68 

Panoramic View East from Washburn Point Pillsbury Picture Co. 68 

Cathedral Rocks and Spires Pillsbury Picture Co. 69 

The '-Back Road," South Side of Yosemite George Fiske 70 

Yosemite Falls, seen from North-side Trail Pillsbury Picture Co. 71 

Cliff at Head of Yosemite Falls U. S. Geological Survey 72 

Leopard Lily Arthur W. Wilding 72 

Evening Primroses and the Half Dome Pillsbury Picture Co. 73 

Ice Cone at Upper Yosemite Fall (2) George Fiske 74 

Overhanging Rock at Glacier Point George Fiske 75 

Glacier Point Jutting into Yosemite Pacific Photo and Art Co. 76 

*Illilouette Fall Pillsbury Picture Co. 78 

The Merced at Happy Isles (2) Pillsbury Picture Co. 79 

Le Conte Memorial George Fiske 80 

The "Fallen Monarch" U. S. Forestry Bureau 80 

Vernal Fall, from Clark's Point George Fiske 81 

Vernal Fall in Winter George Fiske 82 

At the Head of Nevada Fall W. J. Grow 82 

The "Cataract of Diamonds" Pillsbury Picture Co. 83 

Little Yosemite, from Liberty Cap Pillsbury Picture Co. 83 

Nevada Fall (2) Pillsbury Picture Co. 84 

Little Yosemite, with Clouds Rest George Fiske 85 

Sugar-Loaf Dome, in Little Yosemite George Fiske 85 

Climbing the Half Dome (2) R. O. Quesnal 86 

Overhang at Summit of Half Dome R. O. Quesnal 87 

Phlox Pillsbury Picture Co. 87 

Half Dome at Sunrise Violet Ehrman 88 

On the "Short Trail" to Glacier Point Pillsbury Picture Co. 88 

Lake Merced J. T. Boysen 89 

A Characteristic Dome Landscape Pacific Photo and Art Co. 90 

Sentinel Dome George Fiske 90 

Jeffrey Pine on Sentinel Dome .' Pillsbury Picture Co. 91 

Aspen Forest at Lake Merced W. W. Lyman 92 

Triple Divide Peak William Templeton Johnson 93 

Climbing Mt. Clark F. R. v. Bichowsky 93 

Tuolumne Pass (2) Clair S. Tappaan and Dr. Edward Gray 94 

On Lake Washburn at Sunset W. W. Lyman 94 

Vogelsang Pass and Vogelsang Peak Pillsbury Picture Co. 95 

View South from Vogelsang Pass Pillsbury Picture Co. 95 

Summer Snowfields in the Sierra (3) Charles W. Michael 96 

Cathedral Peak, from Cathedral Pass J. Floyd Place 97 

Looking up Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne Prof. Everett Shepardson 98 

Pack Train at Vogelsang Pass Pillsbury Picture Co. 98 

Kuna Crest, from Meadows near Mono Pass Rose M. Higley 99 

Mountain Hemlocks Ruth I. Dyar 99 

In Alpine California (2) Prof. E. Shepardson and F. P. Farquhar 100 

Cutting Steps up Snow-Finger on Mt. Lyell Walter LeRoy Huber 100 

Luncheon on Lyell Summit Pillsbury Picture Co. 101 

Sierra Club Climbing Mt. Lyell Pillsbury Picture Co. 101 

Rodgers, Electra and Davis Peaks J. Floyd Place 102 

A Convenient Crack Clinton C. Clarke 102 

Summit of Mt. Lyell Prof. Everett Shepardson 103 

The "Bergschrund" of Lyell Glacier H. E. Bailey 104 

The Uplands in July: Echo Peak from Unicorn .... Francis P. Farquhar 104 

Mts. Dana and Gibbs (2) Ruth I. Dyar 105 

The Craters of Mono County J. T. Boysen 105 

Summit of Mt. Conness (2) F. R. v. Bichowsky 106 



14 ILLUSTRATIONS 

Title Photographer Page 

Cathedral Peak Range, from Tuolumne Meadows . . . Philip S. Carlton 10 7 

Tenaya Lake, from Old Tioga Road Pillsbury Picture Co. 108 

Lambert Dome and Tuolumne Meadows Pillsbury Picture Co. 108 

Matterhorn Canon, from its East Slope Ruth I. Dyar 109 

The Hammond Fly-Catcher Rose M. Higley 109 

View East, from Benson Pass Walter LeRoy Huber 110 

Snow Plant J. T. Boysen 110 

Mts. Ritter and Banner, from Shadow Lake Walter LeRoy Huber 112 

Group of 2 50-foot Sequoias U. S. Forestry Bureau 113 

Nearing the Summit of Mt. Lyell Pillsbury Picture Co. 113 

Piute Mountain and Lakelet in Seavey Pass C. H. Hamilton 114 

A Typical Glacial Cirque U. S. Geological Survey 114 

Upper Hetch Hetchy, from Le Conte Point Walter LeRoy Huber 115 

Coasting on the Granite Pillsbury Picture Co. 115 

Lower End of Tuolumne Meadows, from Lambert Dome . Ruth I. Dyar 116 

Cathedral Creek Falls Robert L. Lipman 116 

Glen Aulin and Wildcat Point Philip S. Carlton 117 

Spermophiles at Conness Creek Ruth I. Dyar 117 

Tuolumne Falls Walter LeRoy Huber 118 

Grand Canon of the Tuolumne River Walter LeRoy Huber 119 

Largest of the Waterwheels Francis P. Farquhar 120 

A Fair Knapsacker Lucile R. Grunewald 120 

Waterwheel Falls, Tuolumne Canon Francis P. Farquhar 121 

Benson Lake (2) Prof. Ralph R. Lawrence 122 

Cookstoves on the March Ruth I. Dyar 122 

Rodgers Lake Rose M. Higley 123 

Heart of Tuolumne Canon; Entrance to Muir Gorge (2) . Francis P. Farquhar 12 4 

*Lower End of Muir Gorge Francis M. Fultz 12 5 

Little Hetch Hetchy John S. P. Dean 126 

Weighing the Dunnage Elizabeth Underwood 126 

River, Meadow and Forest, in Hetch Hetchy Pillsbury Picture Co. 12 7 

Waterfalls and Cascades in Tuolumne Canon .... Pillsbury Picture Co. 127 

Sunrise in Hetch Hetchy Rose M. Higley 12 8 

Unnamed Lake in Eleanor Canon J. F. Kinman 12 8 

The "Twins" Walter LeRoy Huber 129 

Five-Finger Falls, in Hetch Hetchy Walter LeRoy Huber 131 

Lake Eleanor J. F. Kinman 131 

Central Hetch Hetchy Taber Photo Co. 132 

Upper Hetch Hetchy H. B. Chaffee 133 

Yellow Pines George Fiske 134 

Overhanging Rock at Eleanor Canon Robert Schaezlein, Jr. 134 

Lower Hetch Hetchy H. B. Chaffee 135 

A Contemporary of Noah: the "Grizzly Giant" .... H. C. Tibbitts 136 

Cavalrymen at Cabin in Mariposa Grove Pillsbury Picture Co. 137 

A Fish Story from Laurel Lake J. F. Kinman 137 

Wawona Meadows and South Merced Valley J. T. Boysen 138 

Red Fir Meyer Lissner 139 

"Alabama," in the Mariposa Grove J. T. Boysen 139 

Maul Oak, on Wawona Road H. C. Tibbitts 140 

Mariposa Lily Prof. Ralph R. Lawrence 140 

The "King of the Forest" (2) Walter LeRoy Huber 141 

Three Veterans E. N. Baxter 142 

Del Portal Hotel, at El Portal J. T. Boysen 143 

Camp Curry (2) Pacific Photo and Art Co. 144 

Watching the Sunrise at Mirror Lake Pillsbury Picture Co. 145 

MAPS 

From Yosemite Valley to Wawona and Mariposa Grove, Drawn by Chris Jihgensen 14 6 
Travel-Guide Map, Yosemite National Park. U. S. Geological Survey, Inside Back Cover 

Yosemite Valley. Drawn by Chris Jiirgensen Inside Back Cover 




Regulatiou Peak (el. 10,500 ft.), and Rotifers Lake, tlie best known of many beautiful 
mountain lakes in tlie uortlieru part of the Park. 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



I. 
THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 

God of the open air, 

To Thee I make my prayer. . . 
By the breadth of the blue that shines in silence o'er me, 
By the length of the mountain lines that stretch before me, 
By the height of the cloud that sails, with rest in motion, 
Over the plains and the vales to the measureless ocean 
(Oh, how the sight of the things that are great enlarges the eyes!), 
Lead me out of the narrow life to the peace of the hills and the skies. 

—Henry J 'an Dyke. 

THE Yosemlte Country invites all lovers of the thronging mountains. 
It offers the enjoyment of a landscape famous for its elements of 
surprise and wonder. It promises the lasting interest of upland 
grandeur, softened by the beauty of lake and forest, flowers and falling 
waters. A land of superlatives, it may truthfully boast the most splendid 
high-walled valleys, the 
loftiest cataracts, the oldest, 
stateliest, and most note- 
worthy trees, in the world. 
It multiplies the delights 
of mountaineering with the 
most equable of sunny 

mountain climates. Finally, . ' ' f 
— and this is its loudest call 
to thousands of true nature- 
lovers, it presents a legible RetumluK from tbe summit of Mt. Hofltman. 




Here the glacier ground the 

stone. 
Here spake God and it was 

done : 
Bnttress. pinnacle and wall. 
River, forest, waterfall. 
And God's right hand over 

all. 
Hear the mountain torrents 

call, 
Swung colossal from the 

steep ; 
See them, wind-tossed, wave 

and sweep ; 
Hear them sound like harp- 
er's hands 
On the quivering granite 

strands. — 
Now with thunderous thud 

and moan, 
Xow with giant undertone ; 
While the pine trees whis- 
per low. 
And the sunset's shadows 

slow 
Up the vast gnarled ridges 

go 
To the roseate far snow. 
— Rev. Joseph Cook: 

"Yosemite." 




"Soon, <iuitting the narrow, cllittereil Milili 
nencomer in fuc-c to faoe with tlie ordered iieaee 
Valley. Here, fully Hpread before him, ix tliiit e 
with NtuiiendooN natural phenomena wliieli null 
Barth'x great iiletureN. He Heen the eanonV lev< 
Blaeial lake that liax Riven i.laee l» wide, Krai 



THE GATES OF YOSEMITE. 



und glory of the Knel 
>nibinatiou of N.vlvau 
es VoNeniite nniime i 



iiled 
arm 



""ulaln llo«erH; l.,re»«s „f „,„„, greens an.l lawu.l.r>: the l.i».lual Ion 

veil!", .""""" "'■'■'■'■'" """• «'<'"«.lnK hiKl. nl.ove Ihlx world ol gentle 

•lii'i'T "" '""""'"" "''"' '"•■'• of i:i (aiiltnn. while I'oIi.mio drop" from 

"iiig ng valley- NUperl.l, Nenlptured. and «o l>eantlful thai he ma> 

"<er7,".ll"'."!!./.'''",, "' "<■'"■"' ^-'-e hn., glwn .» an, ol her lamon.- 




■*1 



JO 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Upper ^'oNeniite Fall, seen from VoNeinlte Point Trail. 
Ill Its drop of 1,480 feet, the Ntreuin, even at flood, 
iiefoines ii eloiiil of «pray, ^vlileli the ^vlnd cateheN 
»N on a eiiNlilon, and N^vayN from Nitle to Hide. 



and absorbing record of the 
making of great scenery. 

It is a commonplace of 
foreign visitors of the boule- 
vard type, and of some Ameri- 
cans who know the towns and 
spas of Europe better than the 
glory of their own land, that 
the mountain scenery of West- 
ern America is a scenery of 
mere savage bigness, rather 
than of predominant beauty. 
This easy complaint may be 
charged in good part to our 
modern demand for luxury, 
and will be forgotten with the 
multiplication of automobile 
roads and expensive hotels. A 
fashionable inn on its summit 
has made many a third-rate 
hill in Europe the goal of 
spell-bound tourists, including 
droves of our globe-trotting 
fellow-countrymen. Neverthe- 
less, the trite criticism has in it 
a half-truth. It is true of the 
Rocky Mountain and Sierra 
systems to the same extent that 
it is true of the Swiss plateaus 
supporting the great snow- 
peaks, or the Tyrolese up- 
lands, or the cirque country 
of the Pyrenees. The beauty 
of such scenes is not to be 
measured on the scale of 
country estates and well- 
trimmed pastoral landscape. 

High mountain lands but 
lately abandoned by ice-sheet 
and glacier wear similar as- 
pects the world over. They 
are the seats of sublimity 
rather than of the picturesque. 
Their fascination lies not so 
much in softness of detail as 




lirliliil Veil Full, the Iniliun Pohono. DropiiinK ((20 feet, with :!00 feet of cuseaileH below it, thi!« fall 
In noteworthy In ItM setting, and perhupH the nioNt graceful in form of all the YoMeniite eatu- 
ractd. Note the "comets" — arrow-like maN.seN of water Mhooting out from the fall. 



THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 

in breadth of view, in strength of line and majesty of form. They 
with a story of their master sculptor, the Sun, wielding vast tool 
and snow and rush- 
ing torrent, to block 
out peak and range, 
to lay broad glacial 
valleys deep with 
soil, to plant the 
highland lakes, and 
to smooth the wide 
rock benches, which, 
even yet unweath- 
ered, refuse welcome 
to forest or farm. 



21 

conjure 

s of ice 




of el 
ness 



ementai 
of their 



Sentinel Koek. seen from 
tlie ea.st anil -Nvest — tlie 
great, glaeier-earved elHT 
risins 3.08<> feet on the 
Noutli side of the valley, 
opposite Three Brothers. 
The perpenilieular front 
of the Sentinel, sheer for 
half its height. sIwmvs 
ho^v the eleavage has fol- 
lowed vertical j«>intlng lu 
the granite. 

In such alpine re- 
gions, whether of Eu- 
rope or America, the 
•eal out-door man needs 
no handbook of science 
to interpret their report 
forces, busy until comparatively recent time. Nor does the wild- 
scenes, or the slight effort needed to attain them, weigh against 



22 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



the inspiration which 
he prizes more than 
comfort. He is not 
offended by the ab- 
sence of those sylvan 
graces common only 
to the older low- 
lands. And if, hap- 
pily, prodigal Na- 
ture, in her bounty, 
should set down a 
delightful picture of 
gentler beauty in 
the midst of her 
mountain grandeurs, 
he appraises it the 
more justly for its 
mighty surround- 
ings. The ancient hills, he knows, are man's oldest and unfailing friends; 
their service, past and present, in making the earth inhabitable calls for his 
tribute; and year after year finds him returning with joy to learn their 
lessons and receive their strength. As Maxwell Burt gaily sings, — 

There is no good denying it, 

If you be mountain born, 
You hear the high hills calling 

Like the echo of a horn; 
Like the echo of a silver horn that threads the golden day, 
You hear the high hills calling, and your heart goes away. 

The character and accent of mountain landscape at its best distinguish 
the whole of the Yosemite National Park. Its area of 1,124 square miles 




A Glaoier Landscape; Tuolumne Canon, where many thousands 
of years ago, the great Tuolumne Glacier left its record in 
the deep trough and polished granite slopes. 




Another Glacier Landscape: The domes of Mt, Starr King (right*, with the Mt. Clark 
group and its cirques beyond, forming the Illilouette water-shed. 



^rM^«?«d»-. .v'. 




Bl Capltan (the Captain), with early morning annligrht on l^R eaat face. One needs the 
aid of figures to appreciate the maKnltude of this vnnt block of nnjolnted grranlte. The 
brow of El Capitnn In 3,100 feet above the Merced River; Its actual nnminlt Is ."jOO feet 
higher. Each face of the cliff exceeds 100 acres In area. A lone tree btoivIdk on a 
ledge under the arch seen in the sliado^v on the rljslit In more than eighty feet high. 



p 




<*^'»«jfi»j?»vi}<!ry- 



Vo»eiiii<«' KallN, seen from the Pierced Meadows. 



The cataracts blow tlieir trumpets from the stoep; . 
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, 
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep. 

— Wordsworth. 



THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



25 




First View of Ljell anrt Its IVeisrlibors. from tlie Lyell Fork of the 'I'uoitiinue. Mts. I, yell 
and >IeC'lure are seen ou tlie sky-line. ri;;;lit of eenter. 

combines the most rugged wildness with innumerable scenes of composed 
beauty. Extending from an average elevation of 4,500 feet on its western 
boundary to the snowy summits of the Sierra Nevada Range, at more than 
13,000 feet, it includes the watersheds of two important rivers, the Merced 
and the Tuolumne, and embraces a variety of upland scenery unequaled in 
any other of our national parks. 

Each of these great public outing grounds has its own especial inter- 
est: the Colorado Grand Caiion, its vast gorge, with an infinite variety in 
the forms and coloring of the river-sculptured rock; the Rainier Park, its 
single volcanic peak, 
imposing beyond 
other American 
mountains, snow- 
crowned, and radi- 
ating a score of huge 
glaciers down its 
densely forested 
slopes; the Yellow- 
stone, its wonderful 
thermal basins and 
their geysers ; the new 
Glacier Park, like 
the still grander Ca- 
nadian Rockies near 
by, a wealth of snow- 
peaks, glaciers, and 'Ilu- WliiJ.- C a.s,;,,l., in li;..l ,■ |{i%,i jU l ..iin.'.s., » re.k It: 




26 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Indisin GriMt-Mill. An iniiiortant article of .sierra Indian diet 
>va.s meal made by pounding Idaek oak acornN in rude mor- 
tsirw in tiie granite. Tlie meal ^vas bleached ^vith hot ^vater 
to remove the bitter taste, and itaked into haril cake by 
dropiiin^ heated Ntoues into cookin;; biiskets containin;;' the 
paste. Such acorn Itread is still made by the Indians. 



beautiful lake-strewn 
valleys. 

The Yosemite 
Park has no geysers. 
Its former mighty 
ice-sheets have now 
shrunk to a few pyg- 
my glaciers, shel- 
tered on the north 
slopes of the highest 
peaks. These are 
mere shadows of the 
ancient glaciers, 
which left the story 
of their extent and 
work clearly written 
upon what is doubt- 
less the most fascin- 
ating glacial land- 
scape in America. 

Such a record holds, inevitably, far greater value and concern for us 
than the glaciers themselves could ever have had. The gray granite canons 
which the ice-streams dug are as deep as that in the Arizona sand-stones. 
Though less gorgeously colored, they are quite as wonderful in the carving 
of cliff and wall. But they have other interest found nowhere else in equal 
degree. Glorious waterfalls, flung banner-like from the sheer canon sides, 
tell of complex systems of branches. These radiated like a family tree from 
the trunk glaciers. All were bent to denude the Sierra slope of its sedi- 
mentary rocks, and dissect the underlying granites with hundreds of caiions, 
gorges, and valleys. Some 
thousands of years ago, the 
glaciers retreated slowly 
back upon the heights of the 
range. Each of the larger 
troughs thus abandoned bore 
proof of its glacial origin. 
Instead of the even grades 
of stream-cut cafions, they 
presented the form of giant 
stairways, down which the 
glaciers had moved majes- 
tically, to yield at last to the 
then tropical heat of the 

lower valleys. In this de- Snow-Creek FalU, on Tenaya Lake Trail. 





£ ... "3 






c i * 



r 3 



? fci 



r. — I 

V). f 



• -^ I u 



Z r. ~ 



THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



29 



scent, the ice carved steps in its path, varying in height and breadth with 
its own varying mass and the character and jointing of the rock. On 
these steps hung a multitude of cataracts, and their deeply cupped treads 
held hundreds of high-walled lakes. 

The passing centuries have greatly relieved the primitive wildness of 
this glacial landscape. 
Forests as important as 
those of the Rainier 
Park, and perhaps even 
more beautiful in their 
universal mingling of 
sunshine and shade, have 
covered the upland mo- 
raines and soil beds laid 





'l"»vo Xortli-.siile Lakes. Upper 
Twin I^ake, sibove, is sit the 
head of Eleanor Creek, and 
forms part of the Lake Elea- 
nor syxteni. Below is Tilden 
Lake, with Tower Peak ( 11,- 
704 ft.> in tlie eentrsil dis- 
tance, and Sauriiin Crest on 
.the left. 

by the ice. Many of the 
waterfalls on the canon 
stairways have cut through 
their ledges, and become even more picturesque as cascades. While scores 
upon scores of the fine glacial lakes still remain — and a larger book than this 
would be required to describe and exhibit the notable lakes of the Yosemite 
Park, — many others have been filled by stream deposit, profitably convert- 
ing bare water areas into delightful mountain vales. Such is Nature's art. 
Here our debt to the glaciers reaches its climax. For among the filled 
lake basins made possible by their 
mighty sculpturing are the valleys of 
Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy, the chief 
glories of the entire Park. By the 
height and grandeur of their walls, the 
unequaled majesty of their cataracts, the 
charm of their level floors, and the va- 
riety and interest of their forests and 
mountain wild flowers, these famous 
valleys claim place among the pre-emin- 
ent treaSlirPS nnt nnlv nf Pplifrirn!^ "Apron" and Olaelal Tarn on Lakelet, on 

enc treasures, not only or L,aiirornia, the Mereed at head of Littie vosemite. 




30 



VOSKMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



^^^^^^ ^ but of all America. They are 

^^^^^^P part of our great national heri- 

^^^^^^ ^^ tage, — part, indeed, of "those 

P^- ^^^^ higher things among our pos- 

sessions," as Prof. Lyman has 
said, "that cannot be measured 
in money, but have an untold 
bearing upon the finer sensibili- 
ties of a nation." 

Let no one, however, who 
knows only these renowned val- 
leys imagine that he has won his 
due share of Yosemite's inspira- 
tion. His birthright of beauty 
and grandeur here is something 
far more worth while. The two 
great valleys are of course mag- 
nificent, and each day spent in 
them, or in climbing their walls, 
will bring new rewards. But I 
am sorry for those who go no 
farther; who cannot spend a 
few days, at least, back in the 
upper country of the Merced or 
Tuolumne, among the lakes and 
shining granite domes of the 
highlands. Even though they may climb no peaks, the high mountains will 
welcome them to sit at their feet, share their gentler sunshine and broader 
outlook, breathe their diviner airs, learn the joy of the upland trails, and 
know that the best of Yosemite lies far from the crowds of Yosemite Val- 
ley. Happily, this is now to be made easy, even for the "tenderfoot." 

For the Yosemite country is a picture of contrasts and harmonies that 
make a perfect whole. It is 
not to be known by its fa- 
mous valleys only. These 
are but the enchanting fore- 
ground of our scene, and 
gain vastly by the dignity 
and austerity of their high 
mountain setting. Viewed 
separately, the valleys, 
splendid as they are, do not 
make the picture, any more """"■ '" "*'"" "/ ''"77/' '"'"*'• ,.^"**: *"*' '"'■*^'^ *'*'^* 

i^ ' .' ^ru^viiiK' lialf^viiy up the NUtpe. 




CsitliedrnI Peak «el. lo.uaa l't.», a pruiiiiiient laml- 
iiiark on the cliviile between the Merced anil 
Tuolumne ^vaterHheds. 





lew Kn.st frttiii <>l3ii-i«>r i'oint. Holo^v. in lln' >l «tc«mI < nnoii, jir*- \ «Tn3il iiikI No^ikIji Fall.s. mIIIi 
IJherty Cap. ii qiiiirter «l(>iii<>. risiiiK a tlioiiNiiiKl fe«'t «l>o\«> llie liittor fall, 'riu- Kraiiil«> Mlopcs of 
Little YoMrniite are seen lie.toiiil. >lt. Clark, the "Olieli.sk," to|>.M the .sky-line on the rijclit, an<l 
Mt. Florenee on the extreme left. 



32 YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 

than Millet's two figures bent In prayer make the "Angelus." We need to 
know the background in order to get the true values of the foreseen. And 
only so, indeed, can the highly sensational features of the valleys them- 
selves, and their ancient story, be understood, Yosemite Valley and its sister 
caiion of Hetch Hetchy, with their lesser replicas in different parts of the 
Park, are all inseparable, geologically, from the High Sierra back of them. 




Tlie "Governor Toil" Group, one of tlie finest in the Mariposa tirovt'. 

The "dropped-block" theory of their origin has long been abandoned. They 
are linked by the vanished glaciers with the snow-peaks. 

Thus our Yosemite picture, both scenically and historically, looks back 
of necessity from the warmth of its lowland grandeur to the wild sublimity 
of bleak highlands, till recently the home of perennial frost. Even here 
are startling surprises for one who expects no beauty on the ice-swept 
heights. The stern sculpturing of pinnacled granite crags that dot the wide 
plateaus is no more characteristic of the landscape than is their flora. Out- 
posts of the forests, huddled clumps of lodgepole and white-bark pine, are 
everywhere bravely scaling the ridges. Throngs of hardy mountain flowers, 
most brilliant of Nature's children, crowd all the ravines and lakesides, and 
seize upon every sheltered nook. The shallowest pretense of soil, weathered 



THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



33 




A Study in Cloiuls and Mountains. View east from the summit of Ijauibert Dome. Be- 
ginning: on the left, tlie peaks seen here are Dana, Gibbs and >Ianiniotli. The cloud 
seenery of the Sierra is as eharacteristic and impressive as its landscape. 

from the somber granites, Is sufficient Invitation. The short alpine summer 
Is long enough for their modest needsi Boldly they rush the season, edging 
away the tardy snow-banks, and calling on Old Winter to be up and going. 
Hardly waiting for his departure, at once they set about their business of 
hiding the glacial scars with masses of gay color. This ministry of beauty 
begins at the very snow-line, and grows as flowers and forest march to- 
gether down to the sunny glacial meadows, and on to the still older valleys 
of the Slerran middle zone, deep with soil, and glowing in the long summer. 
Eager as Nature has been to plant the broad Yosemlte uplands 
with flowers and trees, she has scattered other wonders here with even 
greater extravagance. Almost everything is on a scale of surprise. No- 
where else in America are 
highland lakes so plentiful 
or their settings more su- 
perb. The giant cataracts 
of Yosemlte Valley dwarf a 
hundred other great water- 
falls and cascades in the 
Park. These are hardly 
noticed here, but any one of 
them, could It be removed 
to Switzerland, would be- 

. Hiit«cr<'ups I'ollo^vinK Hetreat of tlic Snow. Tills Is 

come a center or crowded Hic custom of many early flowers, near the timber line. 




34 



VOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




W'lisliliiiru Kiike <7,<j40 ft, el.>, on tlie Meroed Kiver above I^ake Merced. Lougr Mountain 
(11,46.^ ft. », on the crest of the Sierra, is seen in the distance. 

tourist inns. The Park's genial forests of white and red firs, sugar and yel- 
low pines, incense cedars and mountain hemlocks, spreading up to altitudes 
of eight and nine thousand feet, thrill every lover of splendid trees. But 
these are overshadowed by its groves of kingly Sequoias, the marvel of 
the botanical world, — immemorial trees that might have heard blind Homer 

sing the fall of 
Troy, or furnished 
the timbers for Solo- 
mon's temple. 

Colossal this 
landscape Is, but its 
features are so well 
proportioned that in 
their immensity we 
feel no exaggeration 
or distortion. Only 
when the visitor 
compares them with 
more familiar ob- 
jects does he clearly 
see that here, truly, 

.North Dome, seen from ita|>|>.v Isles. IS a playgrOUnd 




36 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



fashioned for giants. The very harmony of Its elements makes us slow to 
grasp the full majesty of the whole. To know Yosemlte well is the study 
of a lifetime, — labor well repaying the student, as John Muir has found it. 
We may not quickly learn all Its magic, though even the newcomer yields 
to Its spell. He comes again and again who would know its mysteries. If 
Yosemlte were of Greece, how Inevitably legend-, seeking the clue to such 
perfection of beauty, must have peopled It with gods! 

The Indians of the Sierra, however, were seldom builders of myths. 




'I'lu- 'l"«'rraoe«l AValls of Hetcli Hetchy, seen from granite bar in eenter of the Valley near 
its loiver end. Kolana Rock on rig;lit and jVorth Dome on left rise more than 2,000 feet 
above the meado^vs and forests of the Valley floor. 

Stolid and unimaginative beyond most of their brethren, they saw In their 
mountains only homes, sustenance and defense. Superstitions and devil- 
lore they had In plenty. One of their tales, for example, concerned Yosemlte 
Valley, their "Ah-wah-nee," meaning a deep grassy vale. Ah-wah-nee, they 
told the whites, was the abode of demons, at whose head was the great 
Tu-tock-ah-nu-lah, the "Rock Chief," which we have translated into cur- 
rent usage In the Spanish "El Capitan." His ominous face could be seen 
m the side of a vast cliff, threatening Invaders of his domain. But one 
suspects that this naive legend may have been Invented for a timely purpose. 




Giant StMiuoisis Jil tlie (a l>iii in Marlpcfsa <;rovc. 



38 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




View South from Kuna Crest, showing Mts. Lyell, McCIure and Florence on the distant 
sky-line, with Potter Point and Parsons Pealv in center, beyond Lyell Forli Canon. 

The Indian tradition of Yosemite is too much attenuated by the years, 
and adulterated by the fancies of white writers, to permit the acceptance of 

many so-called Indian leg- 
ends of present-day publica- 
tion. But even these ascribe 
to the aborigines here no 
such veneration for the great 
peaks, the wonderful cata- 
racts, and other superlative 
forms of nature as among 
primitive men elsewhere 
clothed them with power 
over human lives, or 
amounted to worship. Nor 
does it appear that their 
speculation undertook seri- 
ously to explain these phe- 
nomena by a mythology such 
even as grew up in the 
Northwest, where the leg- 
ends of the "Bridge of the 

\\ hite Firs (Ahles concolor), on the EjikIc Peali Trail. r^r»r1c" nr\A tht^ "Ra<-fl«i rtf 

This tree, so named hefiiiiNe of its liKht Rray bark, vjOQS anO tnC Ijaitie Ol 

Is common tlirouKbont tiie Park at 5,000 to 7.000 ^J^g Winds" On the Colum- 
feet, Kivine place to the Red Fir, which abounds at i t-» f- 

altitudes up to 0,000 feet. bia Rivcr, the Pugct Sound 




40 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



tolk-tale of the "Miser of Tak- 
homa," and the like show the 
Indian's restless mind allying 
Nature with his daily life, and 
seeking curiously to unravel her 
problems. For the Yosemite 
Indian, the unknown darkness 
held only ghosts and witches. 
His mountains gave him no 
vision. Yet they supplied him 
with a place to live in comfort 
and aboriginal luxury. They 
provided him with acorns, nuts, 
game and other food. They en- 
abled him to hide in pathless 
caiions, where pursuit was im- 
possible, and from the walls of 
which he might roll down rocks 
upon any who should attempt to 
penetrate his mountain fastness. 
It is not surprising, there-, 
fore, that our first native tradi- 
tion of the Yosemite represents 
the Red Man as telling white 
trespassers that Tutockahnulah 
would surely punish their intrusion into his Ahwahnee. The white tide 
was rolling steadily across the plains to the Pacific. A wave had swept 
up the coast from Mexico; all lowland California was inundated. The 
mountain Indians had no wish to be "civilized" as their valley cousins had 
been. Hence even as 
early as 1833, long 
before the discovery 
of gold and the rush 
of miners to the foot- 
hills, Captain Joseph 
Walker, the first 
white man to lay 
eyes upon the Yo- 
semite country, was 
carefully warned by 
his Indian guides 

r 1 C'ros.sIii>j Gold Ciinou ^loadow.s, oii <rail between Conness Creek 

away from tne great s,,„i virelnla < ariou. TIiIs i» a typleal tilled glaeiai lake. 

ValleVS 3nd m'ldf to There are liiindred.s of Niieli broad, Nliiuiiijur iiftlaud iiieadowN 

•' '. ill tlie I'ark. e:ieli :i itark in itNelf, carpeted with the lineMt 

keep his course on t^mss and brllliant with aliiiue flowers. 




Sugar Pine (Pinus lauibertlana), loaded witli cones. 
This tree, king; of all the pines, is noted for its 
tine cones, twelve to t^venty inches long:. 






Q h 



^i» 



' 

01 P 









Is 



< n 



si 



e "b 
a-" 



THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



43 



the divide between the Merced and Tuolumne. 
And when the gold-hunters came, a notable fig- 
ure, if California furnished any notables to the 
roll of Indian history, arose on behalf of his 
diminished tribe to dispute their advance into 
the beloved canon. Tenaya, the Yosemite chief, 
is the most memorable and picturesque native 
leader in the annals of the state. 

The actual discovery of this Indian strong- 
hold is a matter of some debate. Whether it was 
Walker, in '33, or Savage's frontier militia of 
'51, that first looked down into the vast Yosemite 
gorge may never be established. Each expedi- 
tion, however, is part of our story. 

History has done scant justice to Joseph 
Reddeford Walker. He belonged to that small 
group of intrepid frontiersmen who did much but 
wrote little, and whose achievements have been 
ignored through their own neglect of fame and 
the claims of more ambitious rivals. Walker's 
failure to publish his discoveries, and the fact that 
he served under a jealous commander, who was , 
even capable of claiming them for his own, have 
combined to obscure his work. That he led a 
party of Bonneville's men in the first exploration 
^^'estward from "the Great Salt Lake;" that he Yosemite sqnavr, with Papoose 
disproved the then accepted belief that that lake ""' "*' 

drained into the Pacific; that he established the existence, extent and 
character of the Great Basin; that he charted its rivers and lakes ending as 

they begin in the desert; that he discovered 
and was the first to cross the Sierra Nevada 
Range, entering Alta California through the 
Mono Pass and leaving it the next year, 1834, 
by the route since known as Walker's Pass; — 
here, surely, was a real "pathfinder," worth a 
clear and permanent page in Western history! 
Walker concerns us, not only because he 
was the first white visitor to the Yosemite 
region, but especially because the claim is now 
made by his family and others that he "dis- 
covered and camped in Yosemite Valley." 
The evidence available hardly seems to sus- 
I. . , .n , , .^^^^ tain this claim in full. 

Poleiiionlum (P. exiiiiiuiii ), at 12,04)0 

ft., near Parker Pass. This On thc StOnC OVer Walkcr's graVC in Al- 

(iarlng; blue perennial tteeks tlie t i. r^ ^ ^Tvr^' /^i-.i* 

iiieitest slopes. hamora Cemetery, at Martmez, Cal., is this 




..jfe 




44 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



line, said to have been placed there on authority of Captain Walker him- 
self: "Camped at Yosemite, November 13, 1833;" and Munro-Fraser's 
''History of Contra-Costa County," published in 1882, six years after 

Walker's death, con- 
tains a sketch of the 
explorer, quoting his 
nephew, with whom 
he spent his last 
years, and saying: 
"His were the first 
white man's eyes that 
ever looked upon 
the Yosemite, which 





Above. Mouo Pass ( el. 
10,509 ft.), looking west, 
>vith Mnniinoth Moun- 
tain and Kiina Crest on 
left. Below, Bloody 
Canon and Walker I^ake, 
with Williams Butte and 
Mono Lake beyon*!. 

he then discovered, al- 
though the honor has 
been accorded to some 
other person at a 
period twenty years 
later." Thus it is 

seen that the present claim goes somewhat beyond the testimony of Walker 
and his nephew. We may accept "Camped at Yosemite," but are we war- 
ranted in assuming that "at" means "in"? 

On the contrary, Dr. L. H. Bunnell, who was of the Savage party 

visiting the valley in 
1 8 5 I , and who named 
it "Yosemite," says in 
his well-known book, 
"Discovery of the 
Yosemite" (4th ed., 
PP- 38> 39) : 

I cheerfully concede 
the fact * * * that "his 
were the first white man's 
copvHiGHT, J. T. BovsEN eycs that ever lool\;ed up- 
Happy Hours! Deer are a familiar siKlit everywhere in the np- *-*'^ '-'■'® YOSenilte above 
lund forests and meadows of the Park. the valley, and in that 




THE VOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



45 




Surdine 



fillincr a glacial cirque iu lilooily Cafiou, 
belo^v Mono Pass. 



sense he was certainly 
the original white dis- 
coverer. 

The topography of 
the country over which 
the Mono trail ran, and 
which was followed by 
Capt. Walker, did not 
admit of his seeing the 
valley proper. The de- 
pression indicating the 
valley, and its magnifi- 
cent surroundings, could 
alone have been dis- 
covered, and in Capt. 
Walker's conversations 
with me at various 
times he was manly 
enough to say so. Up- 
on one occasion I told 
Capt. Walker that Ten- 
ie-ya had said that "a 
small party of white 
men once crossed the 
mountains on the north 
side, but were so guid- 
ed as not to see the valley proper." With a smile the captain said: "That was my 
party, but I was not deceived, for the lay of the land showed there was a valley below; 
but we had become nearly barefooted, our animals poor, and ourselves on the verge of 
starvation, so we followed down the ridge to Bull Creek, where, killing a deer, we 
went into camp." 

Again, on p. 78, Dr. Bunnell says Walker told him that "his Ute and 
Mono guides gave such a dismal account of the caiions of both rivers that 
he kept his course near to the divide," — that is, between the Tuolumne 
and the Merced. With no other chronicle of this first expedition, Bunnell's 
quotations from Walker and the Yosemite chief enable us to see the weary 

explorers struggling up the 
steep defile of Bloody Canon 
from the volcanic Mono 
plain, descending the long 
western slope, half starved, 
and floundering through the 
untracked snow of Novem- 
ber on the divide, to reach 
at last the sunshine and com- 
fort of the pro\-incial capi- 
tal, Monterey. Probably 
Walker's route was much 
the same as that of the later 
Tioga Road. The Indians 
had kept the secret of their 
warm Yosemite home. 

Mt. Hofl'nian, from Sn<>\v Flat, on tlie Tioga Koail. Tlil.s Wp muSt roncllldp T 

mass of granite ramparts Is the crest of tlie diviile < • , . ■. i,' 

between Yosemite Valley and the Tuolumne. think, that \^hlle WalkcT 




46 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




E^nstern End of Yoseiiiite Valley, seen from Yosemite Falls Trail, near foot of the llpper 
Fall. Beginning T»ith Glacier Point on the right, the sky-line sho«» successively >It. 
SStsirr King, the Mt, Clark grouit. Half Dome, and North Dome. 

first traversed the Yosemite uplands, and was, In that sense, as Bunnell 
admits, "the original white discoverer," the honor of first visiting the tioor 
of the valley and making known the majesty of its walls remained for the 

"Mariposa Battalion." Of 
that second expedition we 
have a vivid and trust- 
worthy report. Dr. Bun- 
nell's account of it, and of 
the Indian war of 185 i, of 
which it was a part, is a 
frontier classic, with Tena- 
ya as its hero. In the old 
chief's last stand for the 
mountain fortress of his 
people, we see the Indian 
at his best. 

The gold-seekers and 
game-hunters of '49 and '50 

Distinguished \ isitors to tin- (iriz/.ly t;iaiit. On I'resl- WCre pUShing thC natlVCS 

dent Roosevelt's right are Gim,rd Pinchot and Gov. ^^^y^ Jj^^q j-J^g mOUntainS ; 
Pardee; on his left, .John Muir, neujaniin Ide \V^heeler, 

etc. Out of this visit grew the recession of Yosemite the Indians WCre rCtaliat- 

Valley and the Mariposa tirove, and their ineorpora- • i • i 11 

tion in the Yoiiemite National Park. "Ig aS USUal Wltll rODDerieS, 





\\ fstcru eiwl of \ ONeiiiito. with Sentinel Rock nnti 101 (:i|>iliin, Neeu frtiiii I iiion I'uiut, ^,.'!50 feet 

above the Valley floor. 



48 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



burnings, and occasional murder. To the reser- 
vation established by the Indian commissioners 
on the Fresno, near the site of the present town 
of Madera, some of the hill tribes had come 
peaceably. Others were brought in by the militia 
companies of the new state government. But 
far in the heart of the Sierra, the half-breed 
scouts reported, near the head of the Merced 
River, was a small tribe that refused to leave its 
deep, rocky valley. 

"There," they said, "one Indian is more 
than ten white men. Hiding places are many, 
and the Indians will hurl down rocks upon all 
who pursue them. Other tribes dare not make 
war on them, for they are lawless, like the griz- 
zly bear, whose name, Yo-Semite, they have 
adopted, and as strong. We fear to go to this 
valley. There are many witches there." 

Messengers sent to the Yosemites failed, 
but at last their chief came alone. Addressing 
Major Savage, a veteran frontiersman who com- 
manded the Battalion, the grave old Indian said: 
"My people do not want anything from the 
Great Father you tell me about. The Great 
Spirit is our father, and has supplied us with all 
we need. We want nothing from white men. 
Our women are able to do our work. Go then; 
let us remain in the mountains where we were born, and where the ashes 
of our fathers have been given to the winds. I have said enough!" 




Iii<li:iii Aforu Caelie ("Cliuck- 
aii"), consistiug of a larjie 
Mioker l)a.sket set on po!4t.s, 
aii«I thati'lied ^vith pine 
Uranolies, points rto^vn, to 
keep out squirrels and niioe. 




Teuaya I'eak ( lO.lMIO H.». on the riKlit, ^vitii Tenaja I-ake in the distance at its foot. 



THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



49 



Tenaya was sent to bring in his tribe, but only a part came, mostly 
the old and the very young. The aged chief, when charged with decep- 
tion, promised to go on with his people to the soldiers' camp. Major 
Savage, he said, might go to the valley with one of his youths as a guide, 

but he would find no one there ; 
the younger men from Mono 
and the Tuolumne who had 
married into the tribe had gone 
back to the mountains. "My 
tribe is small," he declared, 




In ToiiJiya ("anon. The iipiior view 
looks baek to tlie Malt' noiiie; the 
louver one shows the isorKi' blocked 
by a huKO boiil«Ier. Tlie steep 
Moiitli wall, swept by avalanehes 
every sprinK: from the side of 
Cloiiils Kest. is seen in eaeh pie- 
tiire. This eafion oti'ers (;;reat difll- 
eiilties to tile eliinber. 



"not large as the white chief has said. The Piutcs and Monos are all gone. 
Young and strong men can find jilentv in the mountains; why should they 
go to see the white chiefs, to be yarded like horses and cattle? I am 
willing to go, for it is best for my people." 




if * 



a_2 

- yi 



3 a 



H- 






Q « 



jm\ it'' 



■2 i 2 s 




52 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




South Merced Valley, seen from I^ookout Poiut, on the road from "XVa^vona to Yoseniite. 

Sending Tenaya and his band on to the camp, upon the South Fork 
of the Merced, Savage and his men proceeded across the upland through 
deep snow, and on March 21, 185 i, descended to the mysterious valley. 
There they found only an aged squaw. It was as Tenaya had said; the 
young men and their women had disappeared, and after a brief survey 
the disappointed whites recrossed the hills to their camp. 

During this first visit to the valley, 
Dr. Bunnell proposed naming it Yosemite, 
after its Indian inhabitants; and the beau- 
tiful name was adopted, though not with- 
out the usual opposition from men who 
saw in the Indian merely a savage to be 
despoiled of his lands. But the Indian 
name of the valley, as I have said, was 
Ah-wah-nee. Its ancient tribe had been 
almost exterminated by disease many years 
before, and the valley home abandoned, 
until Tenaya, son of an Ahwahneechee 
father by a Mono mother, had led back the 
few survivors of the race, re-enforced by 
renegade Monos, Piutes from the Tuolum- 
ne, and fugitives from the lowland tribes. 
The mongrel clan of several hundred mem- 
A ^oNeniite wood-Gutiierer. bcrs proudly adoptcd 3. ncw name given it 





Mirror l.nko, :il iiKiiitii iil rrii:i>:i ('anon, ^vltli retloctioii of >lt. W'ntkiii.s. ri.sinK: more than 
4.<100 feet ali<»ve Its .siirfaee. I'erfeet refleetioiiw siieh a.s this are Neeii only in the early 
niorninis: Interval hetiveen the ilownward eurrent.s of the nl^rht and tlie ^variu -winds 
that draw up the Sierra Mlope ax .soon a.s the sun strikes It. 



54 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Yoseniite In<1i:iu It:isket-!^l:ilver, >vo:ivius' a burden basket. 
l:irs;e basket to the left is for cooking-. 



by others, Yosemite, 
or Grizzly Bear, for 
the animal which the 
Indians most feared 
and emulated. 

Savage never got 
his captives to the 
Fresno reservation. 
When nearly there, 
alarmed by runners 
from the hostile 
Chowchillas on the 
South Fork, and 
taking advantage of 
the relaxed vigilance 
of their guards, they 
fled in the night, and 
were not again to be 
tempted away from 
their valley. In- 
ducements successful 
with other tribes 
were rejected with 
contempt. Gaudy clothing and cheap presents Tenaya declared no recom- 
pense for loss of freedom in their mountain home. Even the offered beef 
was refused; the Indians preferred horse-flesh. Hence, after the Chow- 
chillas had been subdued, and the other tribes had made treaties, Savage sent 
a second expedition, under Captain Boling, to bring in the stubborn Yo- 
semites. Bunnell again was of the party, which expected to have little 
difficulty in persuading Tenaya to surrender. But on reaching the valley 
in May, Boling found only deserted wigwams and smoking ash-heaps telling 
of hastyflight. Three 
of the chief's sons 
were captured at the 
foot of the great 
rock then named, in 
memory of the cap- 
ture, "Three Broth- 
ers." One of these 
youths was killed in 
trying to escape, and 
shortly afterwards 
Tenaya himself was 
caught by Boling's 

Indian scouts on a "Umbrella Tree," a sno>v-flattened pine at head of Nevada Pall. 




THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



:)3 




high bench east of 
the "Big Falls," 
whence he had been 
watching his enemies 
below. When he 
saw the body of his 
son, his grief found 
vent only in a look 
of hatred that Bol- 
ing well understood. 
No word could be 
coaxed from him in 
reply to the cap- 
tain's regrets for the 
youth's death. A 
day or two later, he 
made an unsuccess- 
ful attempt to escape 
across the swollen 
Merced. Then at 
last his grief and 
rage poured out in 
characteristic speech. 

"Kill me, Cap- 
tain," he cried, "as 
you killed my son; 
as you would kill my 
people, if they were 
to come to you. You 
have made my life 
dark. But wait a 
little. When I am 
dead, my spirit will 
make trouble for 
you and your people. I will follow in your footsteps, and be among the 
rocks and waterfalls, and in the rivers and winds. You will not see me, 
but you shall fear the spirit of the old chief, and grow cold." 

Tenaya's appeal to the unknown was as futile as eloquence generally 
is. The white conquest paid no heed to his threats. Steadily rounding up 
the savages, Boling's party captured the last of their band at a rancheria 
or village a few miles above the valley, on a beautiful lake walled by pol- 
ished granite cliffs and domes, which they at once named Lake Tenaya. 
"But it already has a name," Tenaya protested, — " 'Py-we-ack,' Lake of 
the Shining Rocks." The naming of a lake in his honor seemed to him a 
poor equivalent for the loss of his territory. Another chance was given him. 



Wild Flowers beneath the U«»jal Arches. 



56 



YOSExVIITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



!t*:-- 



I. 



isr^ 



4 



^ 



,1 ^ 



^#:t| 



hi ii 






k 



•i»,"^»;v-i 



!*t.i:\ 




The "P«r»'.st tliii-t'ii," in tlie 
Mnrlpo.sa Gr<»ve, — an ex- 
ce|i(ionally NtrsiiKlit <riink, 
^vltliuiit the uNiinl hiit- 
treMfteM at the ba^e. 



Taken at last to the Fresno, he soon begged for 
leave to quit the heat and dust of the reserva- 
tion; and on his pledge of their good behavior, 
he led back his people once more to the cool 
spaces of the Yosemite, The aged sachem him- 
self kept faith, but he could not control his 
young men. The killing of prospectors in the 
valley the next summer quickly brought a third 
visit from the soldiers, and the final dispersion 
of the Yosemites. It hardly detracts from the 
pathos of Tenaya's losing fight for his wild 
home that he and his last handful of followers 
were killed by Monos 
whose hospitality they 
had repaid by stealing 
their horses. The Indi- 
an's code did not recog- 
nize other people's rights 
in livestock. 

Present-day visitors 
to Yosemite are often 
disappointed that their 
first Impression of the 
height of the valley walls 
falls short of published 
accounts. Yosemite mag- 
nitudes are not quickly 
realized. Even Dr. Bun- 
nell was ridiculed by Cap- 
tain Doling and others 
when he estimated the 
superb granite cliff opposite their camp as at 
least fifteen hundred feet high. Some guessed 
five hundred, others, eight hundred. Not even 
Bunnell himself dreamed that El Capitan actu- 
ally towered more than three-fifths of a mile 
above the silent Merced. 

Its Indian Inhabitants gone, Yosemite soon 
came Into public notice. As early as 1855, the 
first tourist parties visited the valley. Trails 
were quickly opened, rude inns established, and, 
In I 864, John Conness,a senator from California, 
introduced and Congress passed an act grant- 
ing to the state "the 'cleft' or 'gorge' in the gran- 
ite peak of the Sierra Nevada Mountains , . . 




COPYRIGHT. J. T. BOYSEN 

^Watch Me!'' 



THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



57 



known as the Yosemite Val- 
ley, with Its branches or 
spurs, in estimated length 
fifteen miles, and in average 
width one mile back from 
the main edge of the preci- 
pice, on each side of the 
valley, with the stipulation, 
nevertheless, . . . that the 
premises shall be held for 
public use, resort, and rec- 
reation." To this grant was 
added the " 'Mariposa Big 
Tree Grove,' not to exceed 
the area of four sections." 
In 1890, Congress created 
the Yosemite National 
Park, subject to the grant of 
1864. Its lines have since 
been modified considerably 
by acts of 1905 and 1906, 
excluding the head basins of 
the north and middle forks 
of the San Joaquin, and em- 
bracing more completely the 
watersheds of the Tuolumne 
and Merced Rivers. Its 
area, as already noted, is 
now 1,124 square miles. 

The dual administra- 
tion established by the creation of the National Park surrounding the State 
Park was soon found impracticable and disastrous. The state commis- 
sioners did the best they could with the ten 
or fifteen thousand dollars annuallv voted 
by the legislature, but these inadequate ap- 
propriations were largely consumed in the 
salaries of park guardians and the traveling 
expenses of the commissioners; little was 
left for needed improxements. Much of 
Yosemite \'alley was fenced in, and let to 
pri\ate contractors. Conflicts occurred be- 
tween the state and federal authorities; A 
forest fire, for example, was sometimes left 
to burn while the ofl^icers debated as to 

in >Ierce«l Cniion below ,.,..... -i i i 

Vernal Fall, which jurisuiction was responsible! 




COPYRIGHT, PILLSBURV 

On the Overhanging Rock at Glaoier Point, with eight 
feet of snow. 




Blue Jay, 



-JS 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Joliu M 
here 



John Muir was one of the first 
and most active in pointing out the 
importance of ending this imperium 
in impetio. His opportunity came 
in 1903, when he was invited by 
President Roosevelt to accompany 
him on his visit to Yosemite. Gov- 
ernor Pardee, President Benjamin 
Ide Wheeler of the State Universi- 
ty, and other well-known men were 
in the party, which received Mr. 
Muir's arguments for the recession 
of the valley and Big Tree grove 
with unanimous approval. 

A vigorous state-wide cam- 
paign was started by the Sierra 
Club, the strong California society 
of mountain-lovers of which Muir 
was president. The plan won gen- 

uir in Hetch Hetehy. The tree shown erOUS SUppOrt frOm the nCWSpapcrS 
; is a fine example of Yellow Pine. r 1 11 r 4-U ^ 

of the State, as well as from the 
Native Sons and other large organizations; and was eventually successful, 
though its advocates had to overcome bitter opposition, both at Sacramento 
and at Washington, from certain politicians and favored concessionnaires 
whose private interests conflicted with the public advantage. 

The recession has been justified by its results. Better order has been 
established, and in every way the rights and convenience of the public have 
been promoted. The federal management, while sometimes open to criti- 
cism, has devoted annual 
appropriations exceeding 
$50,000, besides an in- 
creased income from con- 
cessions, mainly to im- 
provements that would still 
be lacking underthe clumsy 
dual system. Several hun- 
dred thousand dollars have 
been spent in building 
good roads and perman- 
ent bridges, and in leading 
trails into all parts of the 
Park. No one who views 
the matter impartially can 
now be found to advocate 
a return to the old regime. 




Ready for the Trails. 




Tenaya Cnfion, from Glacier Point (3.250 feet), with the iate (>aien t'lark at tlie ase of !>4 on "I'lio- 
togrrapbera' Roclt." The perpendicular cleavage of the Half pome by ^veatherinK is well .sliown 
in thin view. Mirror Lake lies below in the caiion, and beyond rise Mt. Watkins on tlie left, 
Clond.s Rest on the right, and Tenaya Peak in tiie diMtanee at the head of tlic caiion. 




Ilsiir-I)om«' 



pcn-tilo^v. 



Now, whilo a farowoll Klcam of evening light 

Is fondly lingering on thy shattered front, 

Do thou, in turn, ho paramount; and rule 

Over the pomp and heauty of a scene 

Whose mountains, torrents, lake and wood unite 

To pay thee homage. 

— Wordsworth. 




Merced River nn«l the Forest in VoMemite, ^vitli Half Dome in iliNtance. 



II. 



THE CANON OF YOSEMITE. 



"Of the grandest sights I have enjoyed, — Rome from the dome of St. Peter's, the 
Alps from Lake Como, Mont Blanc and its glaciers from Chamouni, Niagara, and 
Yosemite, — I judge the last named the most unique and stupendous."- Horace Greeley. 

"The only spot I have ever found that came up to the brag." — Balph Waldo Emerson. 

EARLY visitors to Yosemite paid well for its pleasures. To reach the 
valley by any of the old routes meant a hot and dusty ride of two or 
three days, in a primitive vehicle, over the roughest of mountain roads. 
In common with thousands of others, I painfully recall my first trip. We 
quit the train from San Francisco at Raymond, to endure a day of misery in 
a crowded "stage," which jolted us up from the low country into the noble 
valley of the South Fork at 
Wawona. That ride made 
the friendly little inn there, 
when we finally reached it, 
seem more luxurious than 
any metropolitan hotel. The 
next day was spent among 
the Mariposa Big Trees. 
The third carried us across 
the broad Wawona ridge to 
Inspiration Point and the 
hard-won vision of Yosem- 
ite itself. We were bruised 
and happy. 

Hundreds of tourists 

^•11 J 1 ,1 Lodt Arrow Triiil, eiiNt Nitle of VoMenilte Creelw, leading 

still come and go by the ,„ c„mp LoMt Arrow. 




62 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



Wawona route, leaving or return- 
ing to the railway at Madera or 
Raymond. Automobiles, good 
roads, and improved hotel service 
have robbed the trip of its terrors. 
The traveler is able to enjoy fully 
the increasing interest of a wonder- 
ful ride, as his motor climbs swiftly 
back among the great, forested hills 
of Wawona. It is a country which, 
even without Yosemite or the Mari- 
posa Grove, might well draw him 
to its own splendid outlooks, deep 
valleys, and fine waterfalls and 
lakes, — a sportsman's paradise that 
should form part of any extended 
Yosemite outing. 

The Wawona route, like the 
Big Oak Flat road north of the 
Merced, is recommended by the fact 
that it gives the incoming visitor 
his introduction to Yosemite Valley 
from the heights. Few things in 
this world can exceed the surprise 
and pleasure of that view. Nearing 
the rim of the plateau, the road sud- 
denly leaves the forest for a turn far out on a rocky promontory. Nearly 
two thousand feet below, the river lies, a white thread, at the bottom of its 
gorge. The foreground is wild and unformed, — an abyss fringed by pro- 
jecting crags and pinnacles, and barren save for a few rugged and adv^en- 
turous pines clutching the ledges. But eastward opens the famous valley, 
always more impres- 
sive than imagina- 
tion has conceived 
It. Its nearest cliffs 
tower as far above 
as the river lies be- 
low, while, miles 
beyond, the great 
picture closes with 
domes and peaks 
lightly silhouetted 
against the softest 
blues and whites of 

the Sierran sky. "IVew Rnsland Bridge," at Wawona, built by Galen Clark in 1S70. 




Chilnualna Falls, near AVa^voua; one of the 
most beautiful series of cataracts and cas- 
cades In the Park. 




THE CANON OF YOSEMITE 



63 




Bridnl Veil Meadovi-, on the route of the ancient Pohono Glsioier. Siieh Nkiuny K'l:ii'i:il 
flats, large anrt small, telling; of olrt lakes long since transfornieil by stresim-Avash, 
are come upon everywhere belo^v timber line, on forest trails or among the upland 
granite domes. Homes of flowers and deer, musical fvith the song o£ birtls, they are 
one of the surprises of the Park. 

It is a picture one can not afford to miss, and if he comes to Yosemite 
by rail, as most visitors now do, he will lose much of its beauty if he fails to 
see the valley from Wawona road. I do not wonder that every artist wants 
to paint his interpretation of Yo- 
semite's message from the sublime 
outlooks on or near this road, as 
it rises out of the cafion; or that 
the scene inspires such admirable 
work as we have in Mr. Jorgen- 
sen's Bohemian Club painting. 
But all nature-lovers will indorse 
Mr. Chase's protest against the 
cheap, bromidic names given these 
view-points. It does not add to 
•the inspiration of the scene to be 
told, "This is Inspiration Point!" 
There is both good humor and 
good sense in what Chase says : 

Inspiration, in any case, is a timid 
bird, which appears without advertise- 
ment, delights not in sign-boards, and (>„ Wa^ona Itoad, near inspiration 




64 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



the louder it is whistled for is the more apt to refuse to come. I have heard the 
spot spoken of by warm and jocular young gentlemen as Perspiration Point; and 
although that species of witticism is, generally speaking, distasteful to me, I find that 
I suffer no pang when it is practiced at the expense of this piece of pedantry. — 
Yosemite Trails, p. S8. 




The Merced River, three miles above El Portal. The sharp V-shape of the gorge indicates 
that it tvas probably cut by stream erosion, rather than by the glacier ivbicb carvetl the 
U-shaped canon of Vosemite above. Along this ^vild trough, filled ^vith boulders from 
the cliffs, an excellent automobile road has been built at great cost. 

The majority of Yosemite visitors to-day prefer the quicker service 
ot the railway, even to automobiles on the roads into the Park which have 
recently been opened to those vehicles. Leaving the Southern Pacific or 
Santa Fe system at the pleasant town of Merced, their through cars from 
San Francisco or Los Angeles carry them over the Yosemite Valley Railroad 
to El Portal, its terminus, just outside the Park boundary. This road is a 
noteworthy piece of railway building. A few miles above Merced, it en- 
ters the Merced River gorge, which it follows for the rest of its seventy- 
eight miles, as the canon sinks deeper into the range. For most of this 
length it was blasted out of the granite or cleated upon the wall of the 
gorge. Below it the Merced winds in a narrow, tortuous channel, which 
is dammed here and there to supply power for quartz and lumber mills. 
Gold mining is in progress at many points. 



THE CANON OF YOSEMITE 



65 




At El Portal, the rail- 
way maintains an excellent 
hotel. From here automo- 
bile stages run not only to 
Yosemite, but also to the 
Merced and Tuolumne Big 
^free Groves. These small 
areas contain many fine 
trees, and the journey to 
them is one of great interest. 
The road, as it climbs the 
hills, unfolds magnificent 
views of Yosemite and the 
lower Merced valley. Even 
if there were no Giant Se- 
quoias in prospect, the ride 
would be well worth while, 
for the forests of fir, pine 
and cedar through which it 
passes are among the most 
interesting in the state. 

A ride of twelve miles 
over a good automobile 
road of easy grades brings 
the visitor to Yosemite Vil- 
lage, at the center of Yosem- 
ite Valley. This highway 
is one of the most pictur- 
esque mountain roads in 
America. FVom El Portal 
to the very gates of the val- 
ley, it had to be cut out of 
the granite hillsides. All 
about it is a scene of colossal 
disorder, the work of ava- 
lanche and earthquai<:e, fill- 
ing the canon with mighty 
boulclers from the cliffs 
above, over which the river foams in continuous cascades. One great 
waterfall is passed before we reach Yosemite, though among the multitude 
of cataracts hereabout it is so inconspicuous that the automobile driver may 
rush by it without calling his passengers' attention to its beauty. This is 
Cascade Falls, seen on the left, where Cascade Creek pours from the north 
wall of the cafion, five hundred feet, in a deep recess close to the road. 
So fine a sight should not be overlooked. It prepares one for the 



Cascade Falls, four miles west of El Capitan. 



66 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



greater magnificence of Bridal Veil 
Fall ahead. 

Soon, quitting the narrow, clut- 
tered wildness of the lower river, 
the newcomer is face to face with 
the ordered peace and glory of Yo- 
semite itself. Gratefully, silently, he 
breathes the very magic of the En- 
chanted Valley. For here, fully 
spread before him, is that combina- 
tion of sylvan charm with stupen- 
dous natural phenomena which 
makes Yosemite unique among 
Earth's great pictures. He sees the 
caiion's level floor, telling of an an- 
cient glacial lake that has given 
place to wide, grassy meadows; 
fields of glad mountain flowers; 
forests of many greens and laven- 
ders; the fascination of the wind- 
ing Merced, River of Mercy; and, 
gleaming high above this world of 
gentle loveliness, the amazing gray 
face of El Capitan, while Pohono 
drops from a "hanging valley" su- 
perbly sculptured, and so beautiful 
that he may well deem it the noblest setting Nature has given to any of her 
famous waterfalls. 

Here, too, at the very gates of the valley, we find an invaluable key 
to the problem of its origin. As we followed up the Merced, we have thus 
far seen it everywhere a turbulent 
canon stream. But at the base 
of Cathedral Rocks its character 
changes. For seven miles above 
that point, it is the most peaceful 
of meadow-bordered rivers, with 
only a few feet of fall as it me- 
anders indolently down the level 
valley floor from Happy Isles. A 
little easy investigation, for want of 
which, however, some eminent sci- 
entists have gone far astray, ex- 
plains the change. 

At the place iuSt mentioned, ^Vlnter sports m Vosemite. SkUng and 

, T-'l/^- i'i r snow-shoeing draw many parties to the 

where El Capitan bridge formerly vaiiey each winter. 




Bridal Veil Fall, seen in early "Winter from the 
south-side road. 




THE CANON OF YOSEMITE 



67 




El Cnpitan and Three Brothers, seen from the moraine at the foot of Cathedral Rocks. 
Tourists of the class that finds its chief out-door interest in discovering: zoological re- 
semblances in natural objects have dubbed El Capitan "the Crouching Lion of Voseiu- 
ite." This is a misnomer, as the splendid huge rock is obviously an elephant! 

Stood, and where Its piers may yet be seen, a broad ridge of glacial debris, 
now covered with young forest, and notched by the river channel, stretches 
from the talus slope below Cathedral Rocks a quarter of a mile across to 
the rock slide, or earthquake talus, west of El Capitan. It is largely buried 
in silt and river gravel, but about twenty feet of its height is visible on the 
upper side, and twice as much below. So solid and level an embankment of 
soil and boulders, 
some of which have 
been freighted 
down from the sea- 
beach strata still re- 
maining back on 
the highest peaks, 
is unmistakably a 
glacier's record. 
Had Prof. J. D. 
Whitney seen it 
when, as state geol- 
ogist, he conducted 
his famous Yosem- 
ite survey, fifty 

-' - A Glimpse of \urth Dome, from one of tlie beautiful forest roads 

years ago, he would in Vosemlte Vallej. 




70 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



not have made the 
blunder of his life 
by denying that the 
valley was due to 
glacial action, or 
said: "There are be- 
low the valley no 
remains of the mo- 
raines which such an 
operation could not 
fail to have formed." 
For in fact this ridge 
is simply a terminal 
moraine, deposited 
by the great valley 
glacier at the point 
where the last of its 
repeated advances 
stopped, and from 
which its final slow 
retreat began. 

The line of the 
moraine, geologists 
tell us, practically 
coincides with, and 
covers, a granite bar, 
or sill, which formed 
the dam of the an- 
cient Yosemite Lake. 
This body of water 
had the same history as hundreds of other cafion lakes still to be found 
in the High Sierra, occupying the depressed treads of the huge glacial stair- 
ways. Deep basins were quarried by the glaciers wherever inflowing 
"branch glaciers greatly augmented their mass and weight, with a correspond- 
ing increase in digging power. Glaciers alone produce these rock-basins. 
Lakes such as Merced and Tenaya, above Yosemite Valley, and filled 
lake-beds such as Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy Valleys, are found only in 
the tracks of the vanished ice-streams. River erosion never cuts such 
hollowed steps in water-channels. It requires the long scouring of incal- 
culable moving ice-masses, armed with vast rocks plucked from their beds, 
to prepare the canons for the lakes and level valleys of the later time. 

Thus the sudden change in the Merced River, from a quiet meadow 
•stream to a brawling mountain torrent, recalls vividly to the modern 
student that distant day when the receding glacier left behind it a beauti- 
ful lake, seven miles in length and probably four or five hundred feet deep, 




TLe "Back Road," on the south side of Yosemite. The trees 
sho^vn are ehiefly California Black Oaks (Quercus kellog^^ii), 
a deciduous species tliat does niucli to beautify Yosemite aud 
Hetch Hetchy. Its acorns supply bread to the Indians, and 
are prized by squirrels and woodpeckers. 




Yoseniite FhIIh, seen from trail through tlie beautiful oak and pine foreiit that skirts the north 
wall of the A'alley. The upper fall. beKlnninK 2,o<!."» fet^t above the \nlle>- floor, ilropn 1,4.30 
feet; the lower fall, 320 feet, with Meveral Nnialler fnllM between. Vowenilte Point, 2,075 
feet, is on the rlgrlit, and the tall {granite spire in front of it Im the "I>ost Arrow" of Indian 
lesend. 



72 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Cliir nt Head of Voseniifo Falls, 
slio^ving the vertical cleavage 
joints ^Tlileh have guided the gla- 
cial sculpturing and made possible 
the sheer v%alls of Yoseniite. Hetcli 
Hetcliy and similar caiions. 



walled by perpendicular cliffs rising more 
than three thousand feet, and dammed by 
a rocky moraine overlying a granite dike. 
Where the lake ended, the Merced cut a 
pass for itself through the moraine. This 
is also used by the road to-day. The lake 
itself, probably within the last two or 
three hundred years, if we may judge by 
the trees growing where once was only 
water, has filled up with rich alluvial soil, 
brought down mainly by spring freshets 
from near-by heights, rather than by the 
larger river, and giving us the fertile val- 
ley floor, wMth an inestimable part of the 
beauty of Yosemite. 

That Yosemite Valley is due mainly 
to glacial action, which deepened and 
widened a river gorge existing before the 
glacial epoch or epochs, is now generally 
accepted by the geologists; they differ only 
as to the length of the main Yosemite gla- 
cier, some believing 



that it extended lit- 
tle below El Capi- 
tan, while others find 
evidence that convinces them it reached the foothills. 
Government geologists are now making a minute ex- 
amination of the region, and the publication of their 
work will throw light on many such minor problems. 
But the main question is no longer disputed. 

Such agreement, however. Is of comparatively 
recent date. There have been many theories as to the 
making of the great caiion. The most interesting of 
these, because of the eminence of its author, and the 
violence with which he mistakenly denounced the gla- 
cial hypothesis, was the famous fault-block contention 
of Prof. Whitney. Said he : 

A more absurd theory was never advanced than that by 
which it was sought to ascribe to glaciers the sawing out of 
these vertical walls and the rounding of the domes. Nothing 
more unlike the real work of ice, as exhibited in the Alps, 
could be found. Besides, there is no reason to suppose, or at 
least no proof, that glaciers have ever occupied the valley, or 
any portion of it, so that this theory, based on entire ignorance 
of the whole subject, may be dropped without wasting any 
more time on it. . . . We conceive that, during the upheaval 
of the Sierra, or, possibly, at some time after that had taken 
place, there was at the Yosemite a subsidence of a limited 




Leopard i/il.v < i-. par- 
daliuiim), a gorgeous 
orange - siud - purple 
nienil>er of tlie Lily 
family, which fre- 
quents the louver 
valleys of tlie Park. 




Evenlnir Primroses nn.l the Half Dome. Tl.ese beautiful luinlnonH yellcT flo.ver« are a '«"••"" 
decoraUoTof Vosemlte. Hetch Hetehy an.l other valleyk In the Park during July. «hen their 
buds "pop" open noisily at sunset for a sln^ile nlieht of fragrant revelry. 



74 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



area, marked by lines of "fault" or 
fissures crossing each other some- 
what nearly at right angles. In 
other and more simple language, 
the bottom of the valley sank 
down to an unknown depth, owing 
to its support being withdrawn 
from underneath. — The Yosemite 
Guide Book, 73, 74. 

Had Whitney's examin- 
ation of the valley been 
thorough enough to take note 
of the old moraine below 
El Capitan, it is probable he 
would not have written those 
words. And yet he had other 
evidence that should have 
prevented his error. El Cap- 
itan Moraine and the old Yo- 
semite Take which it helps us 




loo Cone at the Foot of Upper Yo- 
semite Full. This volcano-like 
hill rises each ^vinter to a height 
of four or five hundred feet, 
formed by the freezing spray and 
by blocks of ice fallen from the 
face of the clilf. The mouth of 
the cone is about 200 feet in 
diameter, says Muir, ^vlio has 
ooked dOYvn into it from the 
edge seen on the right in tlie 
upper picture. Tlie two small 
specks on the side of the cone 
in the lower view are the late 
Galen Clark and a companion, 
who climbed it to get a look into 
the "crater." 

to reconstruct are far from be- 
ing the only reminders of the 
valley's glacial history. Most 
striking of all, the hanging 
valleys on its walls are no 
less clearly of glacial origin. 




Overhanging Rock at Glacier Point, the most famous nu<l important vle^vpolnt on tlie rim of \o- 
semite. From It tlie spectator looks «lown 3,2r>0 feet siieer to the Merce.l. ivIncllnR amonK the 
forests and men.lows of the Valley floor, and across to the beautiful Yosemlte Fall, dropping 
half a mile out of its o^vn banging valley. 



76 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



As we pass Bridal \e\\ 
Fall, we note that it drops, 
not from a flat plateau 
abov^e, nor from a narrow 
cleft in the wall, but out of 
a high side-valley, which in 
turn is framed by lofty cliffs. 
The U-shape of this broad 
valley is so clear that we at 
once perceive that it, too, 
must have been scoured out 
by a glacier, rather than by 
Pohono Creek, which could 
have cut only a V-shaped 
gorge. Its sculptor, in fact, 
was a minor glacier, mighty 
enough to dig a splendid 
wild valley, more than fif- 
teen hundred feet deep, but 
not powerful enough to sink 
it to the bed of the main 
valley. Hence, as the larger 




Glacier Point, jutting; into Yosem- 
ite Valley at its junction Tvitli 
tlie Alerced-IIIilouette Canon. 
Seen eitlier from the Valley 
floor or from the trail to Vernal 
Fall, this massive cliff is the 
stateliest headland of the south 
^vall. Its precipitous faces are 
due to i^Iuoial quarrying' along 
vertical joint-planes. 

glacier shrank in bulk, and 
ceased to fill the great canon 
of Yosemite, the Pohono 
glacier was left "hanging" 
on the side, to drop its ice and 
rock in avalanches upon the 
trunk glacier below. Final- 
ly, both glaciers vanished, 




Vernal Fall. 



Thy springs are in the cloud, thy stream 
Begins to move and murmur first 

Where ice-peaks feel the noonday beam, 
Or rain-storms on the glacier burst. 

— Bryant. 




Illiloiiclte Fall, viewed from Urn caiion below. Thin line waterfall lias a drop of 37« feet. 
It In a hard elliiib up IllUouette C'auon from the Mereed River to the foot of the fall, 
whieh ma.v he seen more eaNil.v from ahove, on the Lons Trail to Olaeler Point. 



THE CANON OF YOSEMITE 



79 



with increasing mean temperature and decreasing snowfall. Of their 
canons one was occupied by the typical glacier-made lake of Yosemite, 
nearly four thousand feet above sea; while the other, for want of icebergs 
to drop into the lake, just as plainly declared its origin by flinging out a 
glacial banner, the most graceful and musical, though far from the largest, 

of the Yosemite waterfalls. 
Other famous cata- 
iM^^^^^^^^^^ft^ I Au ^^^ A ^,^P^^^H i'^(^ts hung high on the val- 
■^^^^^^^^^^■kl^S^ "'^^k.^ml^^m^^^M ley walls repeat the story 

of Bridal Veil. Yosemite 

Falls, at the center of the 

north wall, and Illilouette, 

on the south wall at the 

head of the valley, are the 

tr. ^^KI^^^^Kh'VS^^^^^H^^^^^^^^^I most important in volume 

■^^^EN^^r ^P^^^^^B^PP^^^SIR and length of season, 

■i^^^^^3^Btey-«^7!^3Hy^^ S^^Ta ^ ing by their well-defined 

hanging valleys and fan- 
like amphitheaters, set deep 
in the highlands, that thev, 




The Merced at Happy Isles 
— Xwn beautifully -woodert 
islets at tlie upper enil of 
the Valley, -vvliere the 
river rushes out of its 
narrow eaiion helow Illil- 
ouette and Vernal Falls. 




too, are glacier-born. 
No more enjoyable oc- 
cupation can be found 
for part of a Yosemite 

vacation than to trace their old glaciers to their sources in the Hoffman and 
Merced spurs of the main Sierra. 

If one follows up Yosemite Creek, above its falls, and beyond the old 
Tioga Road, he discovers a fine cluster of glacial cirques, stretching around 
from the north side of Mt. Hoftman, along the southern slope of the 
Merced-Tuolumne divide, and forming a mountain-walled basin, almost 



VOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



circular, and five or 
six miles in diam- 
eter. In outline it 
is like the spreading 
crown of one of the 
caiion live-oaks that 
beautify the upland 
roads and trails. 
This characteristic 
abandoned home of 
a minor glacier no 
longer holds its per- 
manent neve. It is 
to-day merely a tem- 
porary reservoir. 
There the annual 
snows are held until 
it pleases their par- 
ent, the Sun, to 
transform them 
again into summer floods, and send them, singing, down the valley to join 
the Yosemite chorus. Yosemite Creek now flows to its fall amidst a wild 
panorama of gray, barren domes and fir-covered moraines. But here for 
centuries a shallow glacier, fifteen miles in length and several miles wide, 
crept slowly from the Mt. Hoffman Range to meet the great ice-stream 
of the Merced; and when the larger glacier sank low in its vast cafion, the 
north-side feeder dug back its section of the wall until it had quarried a 
deep branch canon, in which Yosemite Upper Fall now thunders its own 




Le Conte Memorial, at the foot of Glacier Point; erected by the 
Sierra Club in honor of the late Prof. Joseph Le Conte, the 
famous g:eolog'i»it and autlior, of the University of California, 
and maintained as the Club's Yosemite headquarters. Here 
a library of out-door literature is accessible to the public. 




The "Fallen Monarch," with troop of cavalry. This great Sequoia, standing, ^vas one of the 

largeHt in the Mariposa Grove. 




Vernal Fall, from Clark's Point, on tlie horse trail. This famous oataraot is eighty feet >vi«le, and 
haa a drop of 317 feet. Although the most conventional of the great falls in Yoseniite, Vernal 
offers a niat;nifloent ploture. both in Its setting and in its >vealth of color. The isrolden lereens and 
blues of the steadily fnllln;^ stream, its shootini^ "comets," clouds of spray, and circular rain- 
bows, uiake it an Ideal study, tvell worth many vlaits. 



82 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




chapter of the glacial story, king of all the 
waterfalls in height and stateliness. 

How easily the Yosemite cliffs were 
undercut and torn away by the blows of 
avalanches from the glacier above may be 
guessed from the picture on page 72, show- 
ing the wall so deeply fissured by vertical 
and intersecting cleavage planes that it is 
merely a standing pile of huge rectangular 
granite blocks, ready to be tumbled over 
by any power that can. 

The Illilouette watershed is larger, 
and even more interesting, as rimmed by 
higher mountains. From the "Long Trail" 
approaching Glacier Point, we get a good 
view of its deep lower valley, encircling 
Mt. Starr King, and inviting us back to its 
fountain basins sunk in the west flank of 
the Merced Range. There Mt. Clark, and 
Gray, Red and Merced Peaks, accent as 
noble a ring of cirques as we shall find 
below the very crest of the Sierra. This 
watershed, once occupied by a broad river 
of ice, is now a land of sunny meadows, 
shining domes, and densely forested con- 
verging moraines, the whole walled by snowy mountains that rise to eleva- 
tions of eleven thousand feet. Some idea of it may be had from the 
illustration on page 22. But its wonder 
and beauty are beyond the power of pho- 
tography. The best general view is to be 
had from Mt. Clark or the east slope of 
Mt. Starr King, whence one carries away 
a lasting picture of what a glacier can do 
as a landscape architect. 

Differing from these three important 
cataracts in their manner of birth, but 
none the less proclaiming a glacial origin, 
Vernal and Nevada Falls, at the head of 
the valley, are the largest in volume of all 
the Yosemite group. Instead of falling 
from their own hanging valleys, backed 
by independent basins, they are part of the 
Merced itself, and drop from giant steps ^^ ^„^. „^,,., ^^ j,^^.„,^^ p„„^ ^^^^ „ 
in the river's glacial stairway. These urojecting leii^^e, gruaraeii by an 

i., > J. I |./-|- (■ iron rail, enables visitors to study 

Steps, like the outstanding sheer cliffs ot the >viid flood at dose range. 



Vernal Fall in AVinter, when the 
MereedN fountains in the High 
Sierra are frozen, and eurlous iee- 
fornis are built by the spray at the 
foot of the slirunken fall. 




THE CANON OF YOSEMITE 



83 



Yosemite, owe their remark- 
able height and perpendic- 
ular faces to the alternation 
of practically solid granite 
ridges, lying across the path 
of the ancient Merced gla- 
cier, with areas of looser 
rock, vertically jointed, and 
therefore readily disinte- 
grated by the ice. 

Glacial caiion steps as 
high as these are exceeding- 
ly rare. Hence caiion water- 
falls of the height of Vernal 
and Nevada are elsewhere 
almost unknown, while cliff 
cataracts of even greater 
fall, dropping from hang- 
ing valleys on the sides of 
trunk-glacier caiions, are a 
familiar feature of every 
important alpine district. 
But the two renowned falls 
of the Merced stand quite 
alone among canon cata- 
racts in their union of large 
volume with great altitude. 
Vernal falling 317 feet, and 
Nevada 594 feet. Not only are they thus exceptional in magnitude, but the 
glacier used the local rock formations to make them different. Each has 
its own special character. Vernal meets all the requirements of an ideal 
cataract, — a solid sheet of clear water bending easily from the brink of a 




'Cataract uf Diunionils," bettveen Vernal and 
Neva<la Falls. 




Little YoMeniite, ^vitli Its bare granite itlopeM, neen from Humnilt of Liberty Cap, ^vltli Half 
Dome on the left. Here, too. a .lefTrey Pine, more Mymmetrical than that on !Sentinel 
Dome, haM eMtnblitibed ItNelf. >It. Clark In in dlNtance (left). 



84 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



broad, level granite 
platform, and offering 
all the colors of its own 
delightful rainbows, as 
the flood changes swift- 
ly from golden green 
at its brow to broken 
grays and flashing 
snows in the sunny 
canon below. Nevada 
presents a striking 
contrast to such con- 
ventional, if surpass- 
ing, beauty. Already 
churned to foam in 




Nevada FaH (5!>4 ft.), seen 
from the eaiion belo^v and 
from Zig-Zag Trail, lialf- 
y\ay to the top. In dis- 
play of power, this great 
fall ranks first among the 
Yosemite cataracts. 

Steep, crooked trough, 
it shoots far out from 
its narrow cleft, a pas- 
sionate cloud, seeming- 
ly made up of millions 
of distinct, pearl -like 
drops; and midway in 
Its descent it strikes the 
sloping cliff, spreading 
into a wide "apron" of 



THE CANON OF YOSEMITE 



85 




Little Yoseinite, with Clouds Rest in tlie distance. 

Still more dazzling whiteness. So splendid are the children of the glaciers. 
The record of these waterfalls is corroborated by the rock-basins which 
the glacier scoured out on 
their plateaus, just as it hol- 
lowed the basin of Yosemite 
Lake itself. Emerald Pool, 
the little tarn immediately 
above Vernal Fall, is hardly 
a stone's throw across, but 
unmistakable. River erosion 
could never have fashioned 
so perfect a bowl. A mile 
higher up, beyond Nevada 
Fall, the basin was three 
miles long, holding a lake 
that has now given place to 
the charming vale of Little 
Yosemite. Here bare cliffs 
and domes frame another 
level valley of meadow, for- 
est and lazy river, all on 
about one-half the scale of 
the greater Yosemite below. 
Other yosemites lie beyond, 
until we reach the splendid 

glacial lakes, Merced and Sugar-Loat Dome, at the head «f l.ittle Yosemite. 




86 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



Washburn, far up the canon. These, too, in time will fill with detritus from 
the hills, and become delightful valleys. Nature abhors barren waters. 

Glacial history is 

also written plain on the 

two "domes" that rise 

just north of Nevada 

Fall, called the Cap of 

Liberty and Mt. Brod- 

erick. These are simply 

masses of unfissured 

granite, too large and 

solid for the glacier to j^^^^^HHBlEI^HRinnSMlri^^i^iflji 

plane away, though it 

gouged out the vast beds 

of jointed rock in which 






Climbing; the Half Dome. This 
feat was first performed in 
1875 by George Anderson 
who drilleii holes and set 
eye-bolts in the northeast 
slope, the only practicable 
route. The ascent is now 
made by occasional adven- 
turers, aided by Anderson's 
spikes and a rope. The 
lower view here shows a 
climber making his way up 
across the projecting lay- 
ers of granite. 



they lay ; and as it swept 
over them, it shaved 

down their east slopes so that one may easily scale them, and find glacier 

boulders on their tops that have traveled far. 



THE CANON OF YOSEMITE 



87 




As Merced Canon forms the 

southeast hranch of Yosemite Val- 
ley, so the still deeper canon of 

Tenaya Creek is its northeastern 

arm. Here the glacial story is less 

plain, and on first sight, from the 

heights on either side, it might be 

overlooked. For above the carion's 

lower two miles, — that is, beyond 

the foot of Mt.Watkins, — it crowds 

to a narrow box-caiion between that 

great cliff and the steep incline of 

Clouds Rest. This might seem to 

be a V-shaped, stream-cut gorge, 

rather than to have the broader 

bottom commonly left by a glacier. 

But a little exploration discovers 

glacial footprints in the terminal 

moraines and the lakes and filled 

lake-beds, with fine connecting 

waterfalls, that mark a glacier's 

descent from the Cathedral Peak 

Range, south of the Tuolumne. We 

have hardly entered the cafion, in- 
deed, before we are reminded of 

El Capitan moraine and the enclosed Yosemite Lake. A similar boulder 

ridge, thrown across the canon here, is traversed by the road as it carries 

visitors on their early morning trips to 
see the sunrise reflections in Mirror 
Lake. This lakelet evidently occupies 
the lowermost of the glacial steps. It 
is a mere reminder of its former size, 
the delta of Tenaya Creek having stolen 
a mile from its upper end. Farther 
up the caiion, below and above Mt. 
Watkins, stream sediment has already 
turned similar lakes into meadows. But 
eight miles east of Yosemite, at the 
head of the canon, Tenaya Lake not 
only presents one of the most fascinat- 
ing views in the whole Park, but also 
recalls, in its polished granite pave- 
ments, walls and domes, a verv dififer- 
„,.. ,„ , .... „ ^,, . ent scene, — a picture of the old Tuol- 

Plilox (P. <loiiKl"Nii ), on the Glacier . ^ 

Point Trail. umnc glacier, split against the east front 



Overhang at Summit of the Half Dome, nearly 
a mile above the Valley floor and Tenaya 
Canon. Ell Capitan is seen in the fllNtance. 





m 


vv^r * ^^ " «^^ •* «SI 


m 




i 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Half Dome at Sunrise, seen from Glueier Point. 

of Mt. Hoffman, and sending part of its immense ice-stream over the low 

divide into Tenaya basin, to form the main ice supply of Tenaya glacier, 

and the rest down Tuolumne Canon to Hetch Hetchy. 

Thus Tenaya Canon forms no exception. Its narrowness between 

Clouds Rest and Mt. Watkins, well shown in Prof. Le Conte's pictures on 

page 49, is seen to be due to the 
solidity of the huge inclined strata 
of the former, and the fact that the 
latter is a single block of massive 
granite, rising as high, as sheer and 
as unbroken as El Capitan, which 
it greatly resembles. The striking 
contrast which Tenaya Canon thus 
presents to Yosemite Valley is 
lucidly set forth by Mr. Matthes, 
the well-known expert of the Geo- 
logical Survey: 

The Yosemite Valley evidently was 
carved from prevailingly fissured materials 
in which the ice was able to quarry to 
great depth and width. Tenaya Caiion, 
on the other hand, was laid along a rather 
narrow zone of Assuring, flanked by 
close-set, solid masses; and the glacier 
that flowed through it, while permitted 
to carve deeply — more deeply even than 
the mightier Yosemite glacier, — was im- 
peded in its lateral excavating, and has 
r» *i ii^t * m ti,« ^ ft , r. I * rr.! - been able to produce only a narrow. 

On tlie "Short Trail" to Glueier Point. Tins *, , , ^ ,r .. 

trail commands Hiilendi.l vie.vs of Sentinel gorge-llke trough. — iiketch of 1 osemtte 
Hoelt, Vosemile Falls and the Valley floor. National Park. 




90 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



Yosemite offers 
many other convinc- 
ing particulars of the 
life of its great val- 
ley glacier. The 
beauty of its cliffs 
is no more obvious 
than is their testi- 
mony regarding 
their origin, outline 
and sculpturing. 
Their perpendicular 
fronts and project- 
ing angles, narrow- 
ing the valley here, 
or overtowering its 
deeper recesses there, 
tell unmistakably of 
the glacier's work as 
a giant sapper and 
miner. But that 
work was made pos- 
sible by the extreme 
mingling of zones 
of jointed and un- 
jointed granites. It 
was carried on first 
by the ice, and later 
by all the agencies of weathering, — water, frost and snow. Where the 
valley contracts, we find unfissured masses that resisted the stresses of the 
cooling earth, and in 
the glacial age were 
able equally to with- 
stand the action of 
ice. Here El Capi- 
tan and Cathedral 
Rocks, rising oppo- 
site each other at 
the valley's narrow- 
est part, were undi- 
vided blocks too vast 
for the glacier to re- 
move. So Yosemite 

T) • . ( . Sentinel Dome, on tlie plsitenu above Voseniite Valley, south of 

rOint COnrrontS sentlnel Rock. On the summit is seen the lone Jeflfrey Pine 

Union Point, and which is shown at large on the opposite page. 




Cliaraoteristic Dome Landscape; view nortli from Glacier 
Point, looking across Yosemite Valley to North Dome, Basket 
Dome, and Mt. Hoffman. In the foreground, note the deep 
fissure separating AVashington Column from the Royal Arclies. 




92 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




the splendid prow 
of Glacier Point the 
projecting pedestal 
of the Half Dome. 
In the areas of abun- 
dantly fissured rock 
separating each of 
these pairs of oppos- 
ing cliffs from the 
next, the glacier took 
advantage of the 
vertical and hori- 
zontal jointing to un- 
dermine and cutback 
the valley walls. 
Their varying cleav- 
age planes, with the 
occurrence of small- 
er unjointed masses, 
were set out in an 
infinite variety of 
gables, pinnacles and 
spires. Where the 
jointingwas vertical, 
the ice left the sheer 
faces of Glacier and 
Yosemite Points and 
the Sentinel. Where 
it inclined, the Three 
Brothers, with their sloping steps, resulted. A succession of fissured and 
massive granites gave us the deeply trenched Cathedral Rocks. Purely 
local solidity surrounded by a fissile structure is represented in Cathedral 
Spires and the Lost Arrow, as well as in such clefts as The Fissures and 
the gap separating Washington Column from the Royal Arches. Much 
of this detailed sculpture, of course, has been the result of weathering 
since the retreat of the glacier. To that agency must also be ascribed the 
splitting off of flat plates from the front of Half Dome, as well as the ex- 
foliation of concentric layers from the top of that and other domes, which, 
rather than any glacial grinding, is responsible for their rounded form. 

Half Dome, the Indian Tis-sa-ack, dominates the upper end of the valley 
even more finely than El Capitan, Tu-tock-ah-nu-lah, commands the lower. 
These superb cliffs, perhaps the noblest rocks in the world, withstood the ice 
as they now endure the storms. Serene and distinguished, they express Yo- 
Semite's majesty. "The Colorado Grand Cafion," writes John Burroughs, 
*'is more unearthly, apochryphal; but one could live with Yosemite." 



Aspen Forest at Lake Merced. The finest grove of Aspens in 
California. Tlie large trunlc at tlie riglit slio^vs scratclies 
from tlie clairs of mountain lions, ^vhicli delight in climbing 
these trees. The Aspen (Populus tremuloides) is the most 
Ttidely distributed of American trees, ranging from the Arctic 
Circle to lUexico; and with the Black Willow (Salix nigra) 
it monopolizes the distinction of being common to both the 
Atlantic and the Pacific Coast. 




Triple Divide Peak (11,613 ft.), seen from meado^vs at the foot of Foerster Peak. So called 
because Its snow-fields feed the San Joaquin and t^vo forks of l>Ierced River. 



III. 



ON THE CALIFORNIA SKY-LINE 



I ramble to the summit of Mt. Hoffman, eleven thousand feet high, the highest 
point in life's journey my feet have yet touched. And what glorious landscapes are 
about me, new plants, new animals, new crystals, and multitudes of new mountains, 
far higher than Hoffman, towering in glorious array along the axis of the range, serene, 
majestic, snow-laden, sun-drenched, vast domes and ridges shining below them, forests, 
lakes, and meadows in the hollows, the pure blue bell-flower sky brooding them all, — 
a glory day of admission into a new realm of wonders as if Nature had wooingly 
whispered, "Come higher." — John Muir: ''My First Summer in the Sierra." 

THE best way to see Yosemlte is from the heights. The wonder and 
pleasure of this experience draws thousands of visitors each summer to 
Yosemite Point, overlooking Yosem- 
ite Falls, and thence to the still higher b 
elevations of ErCapitan, Three Brothers | 
(Eagle Peak) and the North Dome; or, on p 
the south side, to Glacier Point, Sentinel [ 
Dome and the great outlooks offered by the 
Long trail and Pohono trail. These com- - 
paratively easy ascents should be made on 
foot by everybody who commands good 
wind and a fair pair of legs. Others are 
advised to take horses. It is not well to 
underestimate either the labor required or 
the rewards to be obtained. As one rises 
from the valley, the view develops unex- 
pected surprises; the opposite clifts rise 




Climbing: >It. Clark. 



94 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



with him; new rock forms are discovered, colossal and unique; near-by 
proportions and distant perspective alike change with increasing altitude; 
until, at last, from the summits he beholds at his feet a vaster and 
more beautiful Yo- 
semite than he has 
ever dreamed of. 

These upland 
trails are the keys 
that unlock, not only 
the secrets of Yo- 
semite Vallev, with 




ruoluiuue Pass, — upper 
vie^v looking: south; 
lower view, nortb. Be- 
low is seen a sno»T- 
field on the slope of 
Mt. Vogelsang, ■with 
advance of Sierra Club 
pack-train coming; in- 
to view. Beyond are 
Rafferty Creek Canon 
and Raflterty and John- 
son Peaks. 

its cliff sculptures, 
waterfalls and gla- 
cial story, but also the greater mysteries of the higher mountains. No one 
can climb the valley walls, under the clear Sierran sky, and behold the 
panorama which they unfold of the far-away California sky-line, without 
hearing the call of those snowy peaks and sunny ranges rising in the east. 
Splendid views of the High Sierra may be had from Glacier Point or North 
Dome, and still grander 
ones from Clouds Rest, east 
of Half Dome and easily 
reached by trail from Ne- 
vada Fall, — the highest 
point on the rim of the val- 
ley. But distant views are 
a poor substitute for the 
real enjoyment of days and 
nights spent amongthe lofty 
passes and fascinating alpine 
meadows nearer the back- 
bone of the range, with such 

ascents as may be within ^n Lake Wasbbum at sunset. 




96 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



one's time and inclination. 
Hence the most important 
thing about the trails out of 
the valley is that they in- 
vite one on and on, to the 
grander Yosemite of the far 
heights. 

Visiting the Yosemite 
Sierra has till recentlymeant 
real exploration, but with 
the good trails now opened 
to many parts of the Park, 
one can hardly go anywhere 
below timber line without 



:i«sssi's^.:. 




Suiiiiiier Sno»v- 
field.s in tire 
Sierra. Upper 
picture shoT»s 
party enterin;; 
Parlt via Don- 
ohue PasN anil 
east Nlioultler 
of Lyell. Mid- 
dle, a vie^v 
Houtli, near 




Foerster Pass, 
across froxen 
Lake Harriet. 
I^o^ver, coast- 
ing on sno^v 
slope near 
Foerster Pass, 
«itU Merced 
Canon and Mt. 
Clark in dis- 
tance beyond. 



finding sign-boards pointing 
him to lake or peak or val- 
ley. All this is in disregard 
of the professional climber's 
fear that his favorite wilds 
will be rushed by the "mob." 
The Park administration 
wisely aims to make this 
great national playground 
fully accessible to the gen- 
eral public, as well as to the 
mountain enthusiast. The 
"mob," of course, will not 
follow; but mountain par- 



98 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Looking up Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne, with Kuna Crest on the extreme left, Potter 
Point in the center, and Parsons Peak at the end of the ridge beyond. 



ties become larger and more numerous every year, and with the establish- 
ment of the Sierra Club's lodge and camp at Soda Springs next summer, 
and the chalets which the government is about to erect at Lake Merced, 
Tuolumne Meadows and some of the intervening passes, the number of such 
companies taking the long trails will, happily, soon be multiplied. 

There is variety enough in the moun- 
tain trails and the districts to which they 
lead to fill many summers with enjoyment. 
No season would be long enough to cover 
all the trails at anything less than a sprint- 
er's gait. Hence it is best to undertake 
some definite section of the Park, knowing 
that unforeseen calls are likely to be made 
on one's interest and time. 

Except the old Tioga road, all high- 
ways entering the Park lead to Yosemite 
Village, and end there; travel to the up- 
lands, save for persons relying upon their 
knapsacks, must be by the horse-trails. The 
Tioga road is not really an exception. Built 
many years ago on easy grades to reach the 
Tioga Mine, it follows up the Merced- 
Tuolumne divide, and crosses Tioga Pass. 
East of the Park, it is maintained as a state 
road; but the western end, long unused and 

I'ack Train at VoKelsanw; Pass. Mt. . i i r L" 1 * • 1 

Clark is seen in the distance. now impassabk tor vehiclcs, IS Simply a 




ON THE CALIFORNIA SKY-LINE 



99 




Kuna Crest, seen from inendo^vs near Mono Pass. 



well-marked, though very rocky, trail through the central zone of the Park 
to Tenaya Lake and Tuolumne Meadows. It is necessarily traversed in 
part by those who go north from the val- 
ley, whether to the upper Tuolumne or to 
Hetch Hetchy. 

This road could be put in good shape, 
and connected by a branch road from Aspen 
Valley with the Big Oak Flat road, at com- 
paratively small cost. When this is done, 
we shall have a practicable highway, as 
nearly direct as is now possible, from Yo- 
semite to Tenaya Lake and the Tuolumne 
country, and forming part of a transcon- 
tinental automobile highway. Such a road 
would be very much used. Next to more 
hotels, it is the greatest present need of the 
Park. The government project of a road 
from Yosemite to Nevada P'all and Little 
Yosemite, and thence across one of the 
passes east of Clouds Rest, promises in time 
to give the Park a magnificent highway by 
the upper Merced to Soda Springs. But It 
will probably cost four or five times as much 
as the other, and, in view of Congressional 
indifference to "mere scenery," is not likely 
to be built within a decade. 




Mountain Henilnoks (TsiiKa nierten- 
siana) on east Hlope of Mat- 
terliorn Canon, ^vliere there Is n 
reni]irkal>le forest of this most 
Krttccful of alpine trees. 



lOO 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



Outing parties visiting the High Sierra may now leave Yosemite 
Village, where camp equipment and supplies, horses and guides are to be 

had, by one of several 
trails. The most popu- 
lar are those by Nevada 
Fall, Little Yosemite 
and Lake Merced, in the 
Merced Caiion, and by 
Lake Tenaya and the 
Tioga road to Soda 
H ^^^: ^^K^!^*?^'^"^ Springs and Tuolumne 

^^^^ ^^■b- jtAsr-:^^ Meadows. There is also 




In Alpiue California. Above, 
>It. Dana Glacier, seen from 
the summit, with camera 
pointing sharply «lown-\var<l 
to the moraines and snow- 
coverert ice cascailes. Be- 
low, an arctic pool, not at 
the Xorth Pole, but in Bloody 
Canon. 




a good trail from Glacier 
Point south, across the 
wooded uplands, to the 

lake country north of Wawona ; and, on the north side, a new route con- 
tinuing the Yosemite Falls trail has been opened to Hetch Hetchy. 

The Merced route, besides its branch trails to Clouds Rest, Mt. Clark 
and the Illilouette head-basin, connects with other well-blazed trails crossing 

the divide to the Tuolumne through Cathedral 
and Tuolumne Passes; and also offers access to 
the entire upper watershed of the Merced River. 
In this basin, the Merced's branches flow down 
from cirques and snowfields which form a great 
horse-shoe stretching from the Merced Range 
and Triple Divide Peak, on the south, along the 
crest of the Sierra to the Cathedral Peak Range. 

kj. f^f^ ''^ V ^fs principal peaks, reaching elevations of twelve 
^ .y^^sikM' J ^^ ^nd thirteen thousand feet, are Long, Foerster, 
1 ^LMfM^" ^-^^ct^^' Rodgers, Lyell, McClure, Florence, 
L ^''<'^^^^^'. Parsons, and Vogelsang, — a splendid line of 
i, ^^^^^P snow- fountains, forming a vast amphitheater 
p; "^^M jM laced with cafions, and ridged by great moraines 

of the old Merced glacier. In this wild region, 
Mr. Muir counted sixty-seven glacier lakes, not 



Cutting Steps up the Snow 
Finger on Mt. I^yell. 



I02 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Rodgers, Klectrn and Davis Peaks, seen from near Island Pass. 

to mention scores of others across in the lUilouette basin and on the south 
side of the Park, in the watershed of the Merced's South Fork. 

This whole southeastern section is a favorite haunt of sportsmen, since 

its lakes and streams are abundantly 
stocked with trout, — as, indeed, are 
the waters of the entire Park. Many 
thousands of young trout have been 
successfully planted in nearly every 
stream and larger lake, up to nine 
or ten thousand feet. Nowhere in 
America is there better fishing. 

Down in Yosemite Valley, the 
Merced shelters many an educated 
trout that exhibits only indifference 
to the lures of the fly-book. But 
back in the streams and lakes of the 
higher altitudes, as well as in the 
less fished waters of Hetch Hetchy, 
during July and August, even a 
novice may fill his creel with glitter- 
ing beauties. The native Rainbow 
trout (Salmo iridrus) is widespread 
in the Sierra. The Eastern Brook 
trout (Sahelinus fontinalis) , intro- 
duced here from the hatchery near 

A Convenient Crack. Such chance fissures WaWOna, haS multiplied CXtCnsively 
frequently offer the only possible trails ' r . _ ■' 

atroNS the Kla<>ler-pollshed granite slopes. on the UppCr McrCed, CSpCCially in 






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I04 



VOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Till- "HerKsfliriind" <»f I^yell Glacier. This Gt'niinii «or<l < "iiioiintiiiii rit'f) is applied to 
the great crevasse stretchiu;^' across the heatl of every active glacier at the polut \vhere 
its luotion begins, and the ice-stream pulls a^vay from the summit sno^vfield. To the 
^veatiiering of tlie slope exposed in such crevasses, through daily tha^ving and freez- 
ing in summer, is chiefly due the head-v\-all cutting that digs the "cirque" or glacial 
head-basin far back into the heart of the mountain, and opens passes through the range. 
Thisi is no^v recognized as the prime factor in the sculpturing of high mountain dis- 
tricts. The upper rim of a bergschrund often overhangs, as here, in a "sno^v-cornice." 

Merced and Washburn Lakes, and also In the Tuolumne basin. A few 
Tahoe trout {Salmo my kiss henshaijui) are also to be taken In the Merced, 
and an occasional Loch Levin, or hybrids of It with native species, rewards 
the angler. On the other hand, the wonderfully brilliant and gamy Golden 

trout of high altitudes In 
the Mt. Whitney region Is 
not found here. It Is to be 
caught only In the lakes and 
streams of the southern 
Sierra, notably In the Cot- 
tonwood Lakes, where It Is 
known scientifically 3.s Salmo 
agiia-bonita, and in Volcanic 
Creek {Salmo roosevelti) . 

For those who mix 
mountain climbing with 

riie Uplands in .July. View of Kcho Peak from Unicorn t-U ' fi W n* a nii't-en 

i'eak. «ith Mt. Holl'man iu the distance. tnCir USning, Or VlCe ZtrSa, 




ON THE CALIFORNIA SKY-LINE 



105 



the snow-peaks that sentinel the Merced amphitheater offer fascinating 
ascents; and the climber is rewarded with far-reaching views, both of that 
watershed and of the upper San Joaquin. But the best mountain climbing 
in the Park is doubt- 
less to be had from 
Tuolumne Meadows 
as a base. The way 
thither from the 
Merced, by either 
Cathedral or Tuol- 
umne Pass, is a day's 
easy march across 
high country of 





Above, Mt. Dana (13,050 
ft.), seen from Gibbs. Be- 
lo^v, GibbN Mountain (i:i,- 
700 ft.), from the Dana- 
Gibbs saddle. 

broad, snowy cols and 
sunny, wind-swept 
plateaus, dotted with 
peaks of curious gla- 
cial architecture and 
shining granite bosses, 
all burnished by the recent ice. It is country of immense interest, because 
it is astonishingly new, — so new, indeed, that the rapid disintegration com- 
mon to altitudes of nine and ten thousand feet under daily interchange of 




Tbe (raters of >lono County. Tills unl<|iie voleanle rnnjje, ^vlilcli lies in tlie desert of 
Kastern California, belo^v Mono Pass, rises ^..'(Nl feet aliove the near-liy Mono Lake. 
Tlie picture is a ^vinter vie^v from I'umioe Valley. 



io6 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



sun and frost has not yet tarnished the landscape. Glacier-polished slopes 
and benches are common enough on the uplands adjacent to Yosemite and 
Hetch Hetchy. Here, on the edge of the snowfields, they are everywhere; 

but hundreds, perhaps 

thousands, or years ' - ''''^^'^■■ll 

younger. How hard it ^11 

is to take Nature's word 
for it, that this land of 
sunshine and gentlest 
mountain airs, with joy- 
ous flowers in every hoi- ^^^^^^mimmmmf> .-i^y-' ."^f ^n^^ '.u'i 
low that holds a spoonful 
of soil, was yesterday a 
sea of sullen ice ! 




Suniinit of Mt. Couness (12,556 
ft.). The cliff sho^vn belo^v is 
the top of a 2,000-foot wall, 
part of the rim of an ancient 
glacial cirque. 

Yosemite visitors who 
have the time will find a 
trip to Soda Springs from 
the Merced, across one of 
the high passes, as fine an 
experience as the Park can 
give. But the Tuolumne 
may be reached more 
directly from the valley, either by the Yosemite Point trail or by the new 
Snow-Creek trail out of Tenaya Cafion. Each of these trails soon brings 
one to the Tioga road, which he follows to Tenaya Lake, and thence north- 
ward past Mt. Hoffman and Fairview Dome. This is the region traversed 
by the south branch of the Tuolumne glacier, on its way to Tenaya Cafion 
and Yosemite. The cleanness of the country is amazing, and we realize 
how the mighty ice-stream stripped the whole region bare of its overlying 
sedimentary rock, and left only the hardest granites. 




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ON THE CALIFORNIA SKY-LINE 



109 




Matterliorn Caiion, seen from Its east slope. Matterhorn I'esik (12,272 ft.). Is on tlie sky- 
line at ri^^ht, and the Sa-tv-Tooth Range in the distance on left of center. 

The trails radiating from Tuolumne Meadows bring a score of im- 
portant peaks, with their glaciers and snowfields, within easy reach of the 
climber. The story of actual ascents must be left to our illustrations show- 
ing some of the adventures of California's great Sierra Club. 

Of all high mountain scenes, the glacial head-basins are the most Inter- 
esting. For they hold the secret of the glacier's method. The fundamental 
importance of such cirques as makers of 
mountain landscape was not recognized, 
even by leading geologists, till the last 
decade. Much less was it understood that 
the tool with which the work is done is the 
"bergschrund," or crevasse across the head 
of every living glacier, separating the mov- 
ing ice from the snowfield above (See page 
104). That the bergschrund, through its 
exposure of the head-wall to daily thawing 
and drenching, and to nightly freezing, 
plucks huge rocks from the mountain, and 
so drives the cirque deeper and farther 
back, till great peaks are undermined and 
overthrown, and broad passes are cut 
where two glaciers head together, — this 
world-old romance of the silent, icy heights 
is one of the newest nature-stories told by The Hammond Fiy-catcher. 




no 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Vie^v Elast froiu Benson Pass (10.130 ft.). In the foreground, Wilson Creek Cauon leads 
do^rn to tlie Matterhorn Canon, flight miles east, Conness Mountain rises at center of 
the sky-line. 



twentieth-century science. So little were these things known a few years ago, 
indeed, that the famous Scotch geologist. Professor Geikie, could describe 
the "corries" or cirques of the Scotch Highlands as mainly excavated by 

"convergent torrents," dropping over 
their rims! But if Geikie's theory 
begged the question, it remained for our 
distinguished American scientist. Dr. 
Gannett, president of the National Geo- 
graphic Society, writing as late as 1898, 
to ascribe the cirque to the avalanches 
which its steep walls induce : 

Glaciers commonly head in amphithea- 
ters or cirques — basins lying under the shadow 
of the summit cliffs. An amphitheater is sur- 
rounded on three sides by vertical walls or 
steep slopes, down which the ice and snow 
slide in avalanches. The effect is precisely 
like that of a waterfall. The falling snow and 
ice dig a hollow or depression at the foot of 
the steep descent, just as water does. Such 
amphitheaters are found at the heads of all 
glacial gorges in the high mountains. — Na- 
tion-al Geographic Magazine, vol. 9, p. 419. 

Dr. Gannett assumed the existence 
of the "vertical walls" and "steep de- 
scent" — the very things his theory pro- 

Snow Plant < .Sarcodes sauKuinea),— the fcSScd tO aCCOUnt f Or ! But field WOrk 

most curious and lirilliant decoration l,, T^U.-.^^., «»,^ \ /\ ^ *-4-i-, ^r. A\c^r^^,Ta.-^aA <-Vio 

of the Yellow Pine belt, .vhere Its by J ohnson and Matthcs discovcrcd the 
scaly stems and fleshy blood-red real causc. It is the bcrgschrund that 

flowers closely follow the retreat of ,. . . i i i ,i i 

the snowbanks. digs the cirqucs and levels the peaks. 





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ON THE CALIFORNIA SKY-LINE 



113 



California's mountains crown all 
her diversified wealth of scenery and 
climate. The story of her old glaciers 
is as fascinating as the new life of tree 
and flower which they have made pos- 
sible. Under the gentle and unfailing 
sunshine of the highlands, on one of 
their broadest alpine meadows, those 
dauntless explorers, the members of 
the Sierra Club, led by America's 
greatest mountaineer, their president, 
have discovered the very Fountain of 
Eternal Youth, and proved it no fable, 
but a fact of the Yosemite Sierra. 
And what a leader is John Muir ! As 
one talks with him, or reads his books, 
George Sterling's lines on another 
great Californian come to mind: 

Of all he said, I best recall: 
"He knows the sky who knows the sod; 
And he who loves a flower loves God." 
Sky, flower and sod, he loved them all. 

The Sierrans testify their love of 
the mountains by spending a month 
each summer among them. This is the 
sanest and most joyous of sport. It 
was my privilege for the first time to 
join the club's large party last July at 
their camp in Tuolumne Meadows, and there learn how two hundred and 
fifty men and women, drawn from all the professions, lawyers, teachers and 
students, doctors, preachers and business men, were able, after a day's climbing, 
to gather about a huge campfire, and jest away their weariness in club songs: 

In the mountains of California, 
We're hitting the trail and shov- 
ing our feet along. 

Or, still more pathetically: 

There are rocks in the cradle 
where I sleep. 
And roots and cones embed- 
ded deep; 
Aslant I lie upon my bed. 

My feet are higher than my 
head. 
I know I shall not hear the 
"call"— 
My camp is farthest off of all ; 
And so I dare not go to sleep, 
While ants and lizards o'er me 
NeariuK the Sunimit of Mt. LyeU. Creep. 




Group of 250-foot Sequoius, shovrlng char- 
acteristic dome shape of cro^vn ^vhen 
unbroken. The sharp-pointed trees at 
sides are AVliite Firs (Abies concolor). 




114 



VOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Piute Mountain, and Lakelet near tlie head of 
Seavey Pass. 



Ah! those mountain 
firesides, after the long 
marches over the snow- 
fields, or across the passes, 
or down the canons ! We 
were not always frivolous. 
One evening, a brilliant col- 
lege philosopher put into 
crisp English Plato's legacy 
to modern life. Again, a 
returned diplomat outlined 
America's relations with the 
Orient, and a well-known 
Hebrew scholar, turning 
from philology, very de- 
lightfully described the birds 
of Yosemite. Another 
night, a distinguished sci- 
entist from California's 
great university explained 
how he told the years of a 
trout. "We estimate the age of a tree," said the solemn professor, "by its 
growth rings. We estimate the age 
of a horse by its teeth. We esti- 
mate the age of a woman by count- 
ing ten, and then asking. We 
estimate the age of a fish by noting 
the circles in its ear-bones." No 
wonder those "serious" campfires 
drew crowds of tired trampers! 

This inspiring society is one of 
the most useful of California organ- 
izations. Its intelligent efforts to 
make the mountain districts of the 
state better known and more widely 
enjoyed should have the support of 
many thousands of Californians, 
expressed by the payment of its 
modest membership fee. We com- 
plain that the East goes to Europe 
to see mountains. This will be true 
until we make our mountains as 
accessible as are the Alps, and as 

well known. The Sierra Club is V Typical Claclal cirque on Kuna crest, such 

a horse-shoe-shaped head-basin Is due by 
hard at work on that task. each glacler, using the bergschrund as a tool. 





Upper Hetfli Hetcliy, viewed from Ranoherla Trail on north side of Le Conte Point. 
Xortli Dome is seen on tlie right, Kolana Roelv in center, and Smith Peak on the left> 
4,:!00 feet above the floor of tlie Valley. 



IV. 



TUOLUMNE GRAND CANON AND HETCH HETCHY 

I see an eagle sweep 
Athwart the blue; a gleaming river bind 
In gorgeous braid the valley's golden gown; 
A cataract plunge o'er its distant steep, 
And flutter like a ribbon in the wind. 

— Herbert Bashford. 



THE Sierra Club discovered the Fountain of Youth, which men have 
sought for centuries; and having taken possession of it, now plans 
to guard the treasure well, sharing it, however, with all who may 
come to drink its sparkling waters and breathe its mountain air. In the 
homelier language of to-day, this coveted fountain is the "Soda Springs." 
It is on the north rim of Tuolumne Meadows, a dozen miles by Tioga road 
from Tenaya Lake, and 
twice as far from Yosemite 
Village. 

No finer spot could be 
found for a mountaineers' 
rendezvous in the High 
Sierra. The great valley 
known as Tuolumne Mead- 
ows — a filled-up lake basin 
at the junction of the Dana 
and Lyell Forks of the Tuol- 
umne River — is about ten 

miles long and two in width. Coaatlng; on the Pollshed Granite, at the Waterwheels. 




ii6 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Lover Eud of Tuolumne Meadows, with Cathedral Peak on the sky-line. The Tioga Road 
skirts tlie soutli side of the Valley, wliicli is also reached by many trails, making it 
the most accessible point in the northeastern part of the Park, while the important 
mountains surrounding it make it a favorite starting point for exploration. In the cen- 
ter of this picture is seen the Soda Springs tract of the Sierra Club, 160 acres, includ- 
ing the Springs themselves, at the edge of the wooded moraine north of the river hend. 
The Club tvill erect a lodge here. This vie\>' is from the summit of Lambert Dome. 

On all its sides, the highest mountains of the central Sierra stand guard. 



Conness, Dana, Mammoth and 




Catliedral Creek Falls, the fine cas- 
cade l>y wliicli Cathedral Creek 
drops into Tuolumne Cafion. 



Lyell peaks are upon the north and east. 
The unique Cathedral Range overlooks it 
immediately on the south. Lambert Dome 
rises from its floor, and, still more beautiful, 
Fairview Dome towers over its lower end, 
where the river, leaving its quiet meadow 
reaches, plunges down the vast Tuolumne 
cafion on its boisterous way to Hetch Hetchy. 
Upon this capital site, the club has 
bought the old Lambert, or Lembert, home- 
stead, a quarter-section in the heart of the 
Meadows, which was preempted by John 
Baptist Lembert, a stockman, in 1885, be- 
fore the creation of the National Park. The 
tract embraces several fine mineral springs, 
and with one exception is the only private 
holding in the eastern section of the Park. 
The land is part meadow and part hillside 
facing the mountains on the south. Its cen- 
tral location, with the Tioga road running 
south and east, and trails radiating to all 
parts of the Tuolumne watershed, makes it 



TUOLUMNE GRAND CANON AND HETCH HETCHY 



117 




the natural starting point, either for W^ 

mountain climbing, or for explora- i" 

tion of Tuolumne Cafion and the 

alluring region north of it. From it 

one goes with equal directness across 

the passes to Mono Lake or west to 

Hetch Hetchy. 

Three or four times, at inter- 
vals of three years, the club has 

made Tuolumne Meadows a base 

for its summer explorations; and 

now, on the one hundred and sixty 

acres which good fortune has en- 
abled it to acquire, it proposes 

during the coming summer to erect 

a lodge and establish a camp, thus 

making Soda Springs its permanent 

Tuolumne headquarters. Here will 

be provided simple entertainment, 

not only for members of the Sierra 

Club, but also for those of similar 

associations who may visit the 

Meadows, and for such others as 

there may be room to accommodate. 

It will be named "Parsons Memorial Lodge," in honor of the late Edward T. 

Parsons, long a director of the club, and one of its most active mountaineers. 

Arrangement for accommodations should be made at LeConte Lodge in 

Yosemite. As the Panama-Pacific Exposition will doubtless bring a host of 

mountaineers to California, the new camp on the Tuolumne should aid 

many In exploring the Park. 

It is a day's good walk from Soda Springs to the summit of Mt. Dana 

and back. The Tioga road and Dana Fork are followed to the foot of 

the mountain, whence the trail climbs 
the pass between Dana and Gibbs. 
The ascent from the saddle is short 
and easy. The summit of Dana com- 
mands a view of more snow-peaks, 
probably, than one can see with so 
little labor anywhere else on the con- 
tinent, while a mile down on the east 
side lie Mono Lake, rimmed with fine 
mountains, and, south of it, a gray 
and grim line of volcanic peaks. 

From the Dana-Gibbs saddle one 
spermophiios a. c u-s. Creek. ^^Y I'^st July,— thc Only stormy day 



Glen Auliii Jiud AVilrtcat Point, near the up- 
per end of Tuolumne Grand Canon. 





Tuolumne Falls, at tlie Ht-ail of the <iran(l Cafion of the Tuoluiiuie: — «rst ami most im- 
portant of the oascartes by wiiU-h this nobly turbulent river, dropping 5,000 feet In 
twenty-live miles, oonies to the ijuiet waters and lovely wild gJir'lens of Hetch Hetchy. 




Grand Ciiiion of the Tiioliinine, Neen from Mm north ^viill, looking ncroNS to the deeply 
eroded side of Falls Rldgre. This vast cuttinK by eriaclor and Mtreiim extends from Tuol- 
nmne Meadows to Hetch Uetcliy, t>venty-flve miles In length and from 3,000 feet to a 
mile In depth. 



I20 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Largest of the "AVaterwlieels," Tuolumne Caiion. 

of the Sierra Club outing, — I beheld a scene that can never be forgotten. 
In Tuolumne Meadows, westward, it was raining lightly; but below us, on 
the east, a wild thunder-storm swept the Mono Lake basin with lightning and 
rain. All the great amphitheater seemed filled with the black, solid mass of 

the tempest; but as flash upon flash pierced the 
darkness, we saw, vivid as day, the breakers beat- 
ing the shore of the lake, and the trees upon the 
islands that dot its breast. While this storm 
blackened the Mono basin at our feet, beyond, 
stretching far into Nevada, range after range rolled 
away, waves of a sea of mountains, flashing in the 
same sunshine that bathed our lofty outlook. 

Other peaks are reached from the Tuolumne 
base with almost equal ease. The trail to Mt. Lyell 
and its neighbors follows up Lyell Fork, and un- 
folds a succession of splendid mountain pictures. In 
other directions, trails lead north to Conness Moun- 
tain, remarkable for the sheer walls of great glacial 
head-basins, and to beautiful Matterhorn Canon 
and the Benson Pass country. Those who like still 
harder climbing may go with the Tuolumne down 
the whole length of its rough canon to Hetch 
Hetchy. The Sierra Club parties commonly divide, 
^f::'kTu:r::f:L:VZ as did that of last summer, part taking the trails 





s es 

23 






a 



fl- 

e B 

e •- 

z '' 

h a 



zoo 
Sea 

= b 
— 4» t 



- s g 



122 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



across the uplands, the rest choosing the pathless river gorge. The former 
route offers the inspiration of wide views from the heights; the latter, the 
zest of a long scramble across huge boulders and polished benches, around 
frequent cascades, and over the walls of such impassable box-caiions as 
Muir Gorge. The canon of the Tuolumne is one of the deepest and wildest 

glacier-troughs in the world. 
^itgT'^a^ffm'''^' ^ Its walls rise to heights of a 

mile abox^e the mad river, 
with constantly changing in- 
terest in their sculpture. 

The falls of the Tuol- 
umne are nowhere compara- 





Benson I^ake, one of the most pie- 
tiire.sqiie of tlie Park's alpine 
lakes. The inlet is seen above; 
the outlet belo^v. 

ble in altitude with Vernal or 
Nevada Falls, but they have 
the fascination of infinite va- 
riety and the Impressive power of repetition, while their setting, at the bot- 
tom of this truly grand caiion, Is far more stupendous and wonderful than 
that of the great Merced cataracts. For twenty-five miles of cascades, 
rapids, sheer falls of considerable drop, and delightful glacial tarns, the 
wild river plunges down a path so narrow and difficult that to follow it 
two or three miles is sometimes a day's work for a party of experienced 
climbers. Even these climb over and around Muir Gorge, rather than risk 
their lives In Its deep flume. 

Camping at Conness Creek basin, below the splendid Tuolumne Falls, 

and at the foot of the noble White 
Cascade, most of the Sierra Club 
party in July went down the caiion 
as far as the Waterwheel Falls. 
These surprising water forms are 
found where the turbulent river, 
shooting down smooth Inclines at 
furious speed, drops into spoon- 
:' shaped depressions caused by the 

L " erosion of soft rock. The water is 

hurled aloft, twenty to forty feet at 

Cookstoves on the march. Part of the Sierra Hlffprpnf- cf i fTPC nf thp cfrpcim nnA 

ciub'a commissary in motion. uinerent stagcs oi tHc Stream, anQ 






mux 



^m^^ 



124 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



the backward action of the spray gives a good imitation of a wheel revolv- 
ing with great velocity. 

Returning to Conness Creek, we took the high trail up the fine Cold 
Creek Meadows, and across Virginia Canon, thence climbing an unnamed 
pass to reach Miller Lake, and late in the day descended through a note- 
worthy forest of mountain hem- 
locks to our night's camp in Mat- 
terhorn Canon. Matterhorn 
Peak and the caiion are worth 
seeing, but the next day, after we 
had climbed the long trough of 

Wilson Creek to Benson Pass, |M^^^'^ l^^tt^^^^^^^^^^^^^^tt 
and then ascended the hills 3I^^^1^^^^^B9H^P^IH^BP 

looking the pass at an elevation 





tlie Heart of the Tuolumne Grand 
Canon. The louver vie^v sho'«vs the 
entrance to Muir Gorge. 



of about 10,500 feet, a wonder- 
ful array of mountains, canons, 
valleys and lakes swept majestic- 
ally from Conness on the east 
around the circle to Rancheria 
Mountain and the blue deeps of 
Tuolumne Cafion in the southwest. Everywhere the vast amphitheater told 
of its ancient inhabitants, the glaciers, now long vanished, but proclaimed 
in the clean-cut cirques, deep-set glacial lakes, and silvery waterfalls drop- 
ping from hanging valleys high on distant cafion rims. 

Descending from Benson Pass, the trail wound round Volunteer Peak, 
past Smedberg Lake, and in the sunny afternoon brought us to camp on 




COPYHIOHT. f. M. FULTZ 



Mulr Gorge. View from Its lower end, lookiiiK up the Tuoliiniiie. Half a mUe above tlil« 
point tlie river contracts into a race-like stream, lieninied in l>y the precipitous walls 
of a box cafflou. impassable save at lowest water. Only a few daring climbers have 
ever made the trip. 



126 



VOSKMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



Rodgers Lake, the queen of all 
the lakes, on the north side of 
the Park. Leaving this camp 
the next morning, abandoning 
the delightful lake shore was 
a hard parting. But the day 
brought new wonders in the 
great views it gave us of Tuol- 
umne Caiion, as the trail skirted 
its north wall. Camp at night 
at Pleasant Valley in Piute 
Cafion was followed by the long 
ascent of Rancheria Mountain, 
the next day, through forests of 
red fir {Abies magnifica) that 
were a joy to see. These stately 
trees justify Chase's enthusiasm : 
"If I were called upon to choose 
the one among the conifers that 
I would live and die by, I should 
choose the red silver fir, with no 
fear of ever wearying of its 
sublime companionship." 

Reaching camp on Ranch- 
eria early in the afternoon, we 
had more glimpses down into 
the Tuolumne abyss, and still 
more the following morning, when the trail led us westward to Rancheria 
Creek. The descent into its cation brought us to its charming falls, and finally 
to the Mecca of our pilgrimage, lovely, famous, fought-over Hetch Hetchy, 
This book is not a brief for or against the San Francisco power and 
water dam. Enough has already been said on both sides of that controversy 
that were better left unsaid; and although I have been heartily with those who 
opposed the commercializ- 
ing of any of our too few 
national parks; who deemed 
Hetch Hetchy, properly 
drained and made access- 
ible, infinitely more valu- 
able, even to California, as 
a park than it can ever be as 
a reservoir for water that is 
obtainable elsewhere; and 
who saw behind the call for 

• At- 1 Weighing the Oiinnnge. This ceremony precedes each 

increasea water supply a day's march on a sierra Club outing. 




Little Hetch Hetchy, a mile above the main Val 
ley; Kolana Rock In the distance. 




128 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



vast municipal power project, and 
questioned the propriety of Con- 
gress endowing such an undertaking 
with public property worth many 
millions; nevertheless I recognize 
that many conservative and disinter- 
ested Californians, both in and out 
of San Francisco, hold the opposite 
view, believing that the conversion is 
necessary, and that it need not close 
the Tuolumne watershed, or preclude 
the establishment of sanitary camps 
and hotels for visitors who may wish 
to explore the Tuolumne highlands. 
The issue has been fought in good 
faith, and to a finish. Congress has 
acted sincerely in the belief that the 
necessities of this case transcend the 
danger of a possibly troublesome 
precedent. Its action, unless re- 
pealed, settles the question so far as 
the country at large is concerned ; the 
matter now rests with the courts and 
people of California. I have room 
only to point out the fact that those 
who would know Hetch Hetchy must 
see it before it ceases to be the unique 

and glorious vale it is to-day. The Yosemite Park contains many lakes as 

fine as this will be ; it has only one Hetch Hetchy. 

If there were no Yosemite, Hetch Hetchy would doubtless be the 

most celebrated valley in America. But it is misleading, though easy, to 

describe it as merely a minor edition of the more magnificent caiion. The 

resemblances, of course, are 

startling. Sheer gray walls 

of granite, marked with 

"royal arches," crowned 

with domes, and hung with 

splendid waterfalls, rim a 

similar level valley floor. 

This records the filling of an 

ancient glacial lake, which 

is still more plainly recalled 

in the rock sill at its lower 

end. Here the Tuolumne, ij„„„,„,^ ^ake m Eleanor Cafio„. at the foot of the 
after flowing lazily for overhnnRins, rotk shown ou page 134. 




Sunrise in Hetcli Hetchy. 



^~ ,>v 


m 


HHI 


imm 




-1 ■>.'^ '* '^ 




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JlK^^M 


Ml 


l^i 


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PWiHi 


^^ 


w^M 


Hn t^ 


"- w 




tHHH 




'*Tbe "Fn-lma," a aplendld doable tree !■ the Tuolumne Grove. 




In Mariposa Grove. 



Thy giant brood, . . . 

Children of elder time, in whose devotion 
The chainless winds still come and ever came 
To hear an old and solemn harmony. 

— Shelley. 



TUOLUMNE GRAND CANON AND HETCH HETCIIY 



131 



three miles amidst mead- 
ows and forests, is cut- 
ting a narrow box caiion, 
too shallow as yet to 
save the valley from an- 
nual inundation by 
spring floods. Freed 
thus from unwonted re- 
straint, the impatient 
stream resumes its role 
as a caiion torrent, and 
bounds wildly away to 
join the San Joaquin. 
But Hetch Hetchy 
has a character and at- 
mosphere all its own. It 
lies five hundred feet 
lower than Yosemite; it 
is only half as long and 
wide, with walls two- 
thirds as high. The 
smaller cafion is warmer, sunnier, more gracious. Its beauty is less appalling, 
but so much more intimate and lovable that save for the formal resemblance 




Falls, iu Rancberia Creek, Hetch Hetchy, 







I,ake Eleanor, five iiiileN northwest <»t' Hetch Hetchy. This beautiful niountaln-walled 
lake, enlarged by a daiu at Its outlet, will form part of the Sau Francisco %vater Hysteiu. 




a •^ S w4 

o jj 2 

- Z S 4> 

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i I S C fa 



134 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




Velloiv PlneN (PinuM pouderoisa). 



and contiguity of the two valleys, a reader 
of mountain character would hardly compare 
the gentler graces of H.etch Hetchy with the 
stupendous grandeurs of Yosemite. 

The walls of Hetch Hetchy, imposing 
in their height and sculptured forms, will 
make a very splendid frame for the restored 
lake. Its two great waterfalls, with the cas- 
cades in the 
branch caiions of 
Rancheria and 
Till-Till Creeks, 
so far as not 
buried by the 
rising waters, 
will always 
be among the 
most beautiful 
in the Park. But 
its valley floor, 
with all the 
splendor of 
mountain flowers 
and stately for- 
ests, will be over- 
whelmed. No 
lake can ever 
compare with 
such a valley, or 
make up the loss 
of such groves 
of pines and 
oaks. Black oaks 
dominate this 
valley floor, just 
as the yellow 
pines are su- 
preme on the floor of Yosemite. Taller than 
the live oaks, with vast crowns of bright 
deciduous foliage, they form here the noblest 
oak groves I have ever seen ; and I advise my 
readers who love beautiful trees to see these 
great oaks, and walk among them, and bathe 
in the cool Tuolumne beneath their spread- 
ing shade, before It Is too late. 




Overhanging Rock at Bleanor 
Canon, This little known 
cliff rises two thousand feet 
or more above one of the 
most beautiful lakes In the 
National Park. 




I- =2 



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si:;: 



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^ i ? 3 



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( onleiiiitoiitr.v of Aoali. 1 lie l:»iii«)u.>, "(jrlaizly Glaut," palriuroli »>1 tlie Mariposa Grove, 
hUM ivatclied the career of man upon the earth for at leawt forty eenturies. It is one 
of a few very ancient trees found in the several groves, and believed to be survivors 
of a former Keneratlon of Sequoias. — doubtless the oldest of all living things. This 
venerable Big Tree is thirty feet in diameter; its largest limb is six feet thlclc Its 
height, 204 feet, however, is less than that of many younger trees, the storms having 
destroyed much of Its crown. It shows few signs of senility, and may live many cen- 
turies more. 




Cavalrymen at the Cabin in ^lariposa Grove. For many years tlie Xutioual I'arii lias 
been policed by a detail of United State^4 cavalry, an<l Its Superintendent has been an 
Army officer. This system, bo-wever, has been changed by the present Federal admin- 
Ititratlon to one of civilian supervision. 



V. 



THE "KING OF THE FOREST" 

In terraced emerald they stand 
Against the sky, 
Each elder tree a king 
Whose fame the wordless billows magnify. 

— George Sterling : ''An Altar of the West." 



THE crowning glory of the Yosemite country is its forests. Of these 
the three groves of Big Trees {Sequoia gigantea) , especially the great 
Mariposa Grove, reached by way of Wawona, represent the climax 
of plant life. To leave the Park without seeing them is unthinkable. 

The Yosemite forests begin with the magnificent yellow pines and 
incense cedars {Lib- 
ocedriis deciirrens) , 
as well as black an J 
maul oaks, which do 
so much to soften 
and adorn the deep, 
wide valleys on the 
Merced and Tuol- 
umne. Whether we 
look down on these 
notable forests from 
the valley walls, or 

11 " .L L • -^ Fish Story from Laurel Lake. One day's can-li of a parly 

walk among their of sportsmen. 




138 



VOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



fine trees, we quickly recognize that, unparalleled as is their setting, they 
are worthy of it. 

Quitting the valleys for the uplands, we soon find the yellow pine 
yielding in number to the great sugar pine of California and southern Ore- 
gon. On the plateaus above, first place is taken by w^hite fir {Abies con- 
color), and held up to about 7,500 feet, where the still more imposing red 
fir {Abies magnifica) supplants it. Each of these typical Sierran trees 
forms large and delightful forests in many parts of the Park. Along with 




\Vsi>vona Uleado^vs and the South Meroeil Valley, seen from \VaT»-ona Point, near the 

Mariposa Grove. 

red fir, Jeffrey and mountain pines are found, to the nine thousand foot 
level and beyond, where the graceful mountain hemlocks dwell, and the 
tamarack or lodgepole pine {Piniis contort a murrayana) takes up its task 
of covering the thinnest soils with gaunt forests that seem to belong to the 
stern, new landscapes. On the highest ridges, outposts of stunted white- 
bark pine {Pintis albicaulis) march with the hardiest alpine flowers to the 
very snow-line. But it is the Sequoia which, in interest and importance, rises 
immeasurably above the Park's other forest wealth, peerless among all 
growing creatures of the soil in age and size, and equally preeminent in 
beauty and distinction. 



THE KING OF THE FOREST 



139 



Would you know what the famous 
Big Tree really is, how it outlives all 
its forest comrades, enduring by the 
pluck that meets calamity with a laugh ? 
A volume of botanical data would tell 
less of its habits, its virility, than one 
may learn by seeing a single example of 
Sequoia well-doing. Let us visit the 
little Tuolumne Grove, on the west 
boundary of the Park. This contains 
only thirty trees, among them some of 
colossal size and perfect proportion. 
But we have come to see a burnt and 
shattered stump that sets forth the vir- 
tues of its clan more bravely than any 
of its comelier 
peers. It is the 
so-called "King 
of the Forest." 
Among my 
boyhood friends 
was a worthy but 
broken old man. 
In earlier years 
he had served 
his community 
well. Then mis- 
fortune and ill 
health dealt him 
a cruel slap, and 
his kindly heart 
took on a veneer 
of eccentricity. 
He became a vil- 
lage "character." 
His neighbors, 
loving him but 
knowing the 
twist, put him 
gently by as a 
negligible "back 
number." But 
when a test came 

Red Fir (Abie.s inngnlf- that tried the 
lea), on Rnnelieria 1 r 

Mountain. SOUl 01 OUr tOWn, 




AInI>:iin:i," in the 3InripONn (.roxo. ItM 
tji»i«'al <ioiiie-Mliape<I ero^vii iu<lii-:iteH 
tliiit it lins been exceptional in tliUN 
far eitcnping damage by storm. 



140 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 




It was "Old Ben," the super- 
annuate, whose fiber and 
courage saved the day. 

The forest life, too, has 
its crises; It provides tests 
of the hardest. And as 
human wrecks often regain 
their footing and make 
good, so a tree that by all 
signs is down and out, like 
an obsolete and seedy poli- 
tician, or king discrowned, 
— may not it "come back"? 
Originally our tatter- 
demalion "King of the For- 
est" was one of the noblest 
Big Trees. It had a circum- 
ference of nearly a hundred 
feet. Its height was doubt- 
less three hundred. Its 
crown was worthy of a 
monarch of giants. Around 
It the tides of ordinary tree 
life rose and fell. Pines and 
firs, the sturdy commoners 
of the forest, spanning out their little generation of three or four centuries, 
came and went. But His Sequoia Majesty ruled on. For 
two thousand years, or even three, it was the pride of 
its stately grove. 

Then came disaster that would have wiped out any 
other tree. Fire destroyed one side of It, and ate away 
Its heart. Of the huge bole there remained hardly a half 
cylinder of sound wood and thick cinnamon-colored bark. 
The crown fell, but this charred fragment stood, ninety 
feet of hollowed stalk, still flaunting two or three scorched 
and ragged little limbs. It seemed merely a lopsided and 
ludicrous monument to departed grandeur. Surely even 
a forest king, in such plight, might yield without dis- 
honor, and returning to the soil await reincarnation In 
another age of Big Tree life. But not the unconquerable 
Sequoia. Blood will tell! So long as a sound root re- 
mained, and sap still flowed, this "King" would be no 
less than kingly. 

Mustering Its diminished resources, the stricken .„ .^ , 

^ 1 T • 1 o • '£ Mariposa IJly (Cal- 

monarch held Its ground. It is the Sequoia way, it a tree ocimrtnN vennstufi). 



Maul Oak (Qiiercus olirj.s<>lei»i>*». ou Wawona Road. 
This familiar tree, also Icnown as "Canon Live Oals," 
"Gold-Cup Oak," etc., is common on hillsides and 
canon walls In the lower half of the Park, and 
covers the talus and rock ledges of Yosemite and 
Hetch Hetchy with low-spreading evergreen foliage. 




THE KING OF THE FOREST 



141 



be weakened by fire, to clutch 
the soil more broadly than be- 
fore. Thus, here, the few re- 
maining roots were sent farther 
out, and new stores of nour- 
ishment drawn upon. But it 
must do more than feed. It 
is a tree's office to be beautiful. 
It Is a king's right to wear a 
crown. So now the surviving 




'King of the Forest," a mere Nliell, 
eft by lire, of ^vlijit ^vas onee the 
nionaroli of tlie Tiioliiiiine Grove; 
now niulvin}; an heroir effort to re- 
build it.s crown, and set a ne>v .start 
in life. Tlie tliree Itv^iireN at its bane 
nIiow that ItM tlianieter Ava.s altout 
thirty feet. The line tree in tlie 
foreground below i.s a Mix-foot i{ed 
ir (AI>ieH niagrnlHea). 

branchlets are cheerily turning 
upward, — also after the habit 
of the species when, crushed by 
lightning or storm, it quickly 



142 



YOSEMITE AND ITS HIGH SIERRA 



rebuilds its top; and one of them has already taken shape there, far aloft, 
as a symmetrical young tree, undaunted by adversity, and fighting for its 
share of air and sunshine. Thus would the living skeleton hide its shame 
by grace of new foliage. Here's wishing it luck ! Royal endurance merits 
homage. Long may so kingly a forest "character" play a part in the tree 
world ! An eminent expert, famous for his knowledge of mankind, once 




Three Veterans. — the "Haverford" anil "Ohio" trees in the Mariposa Grove, and Galen 
Clarlt at tlie age of !)."». Tliis is said to be the last picture of tlie celebrated "Guar- 
dian of Yosemite," who died a year later, in 1910. The "Haverford." named for the 
college in Pennsylvania, illustrates the Indian practice of using Big Trees as back- 
logs for fires. Although its core v»as burnt away, leaving a cavern that is reputed to 
have sheltered seventeen horses and their riders, its remaining roots have reached 
out the more stoutly for nourislinient, and are supplying ample sap to stalk an«l crown. 

declared: "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." 

This Sequoia King, more than human in its tenacity, is a veritable Job of 

the forest. Its faith forbids death. Better to keep on growing against 

odds, better to live even as a misshapen cripple, showing what humble 

beauty it may, than to stand a black and rotting shell where once it reigned 

Sovereign of the Woods! Truly, it is not alone in the Forest of Arden 

that we 

Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones. 



NOTES 

Transportation, Hotels, Camps, Guides, etc. — Yosemite Valley is about 150 miles due 
east of San Francisco. It is reached by either the Southern Pacific or the Santa Fe Rail- 
way to Merced, 145 miles by rail from San Francisco and 330 from Los Angeles; by the 
Yosemite Valley Railroad from Merced, 78 miles, to El Portal, just outside the National 
Park boundary, and by automobile stages from El Portal to Yosemite village, 12 miles. 
Round-trip tickets from San Francisco to Yosemite, $22.35; from Los Angeles, $31.20. 
Sleeping-car berths, $2.50 each way. 

Del Portal, the Yosemite Valley Railroad's hotel at El Portal, is more than a stop- 
ping place on the way to Yosemite, as it offers excellent accommodations for sportsmen 
hunting or fishing in the near-by mountains, or tourists visiting the Merced and Tuolumne 
Sequoia Groves. Hotel Rates, $4.00 per day, or $22.50 per week, upwards. Automobile 
round trip to the Big Trees, made in one day, $7.50. 

Tourist accommodations in Yosemite are provided at present by the Sentinel Hotel 
and three large permanent camps. While a larger and modern hotel is promised by the 
Park administration for the season of 1915, the Sentinel Hotel, opposite Yosemite Falls, 
W. M. Sell, Jr., manager, gives good service at the prices charged, $3.50 to $5.00 a day, 
or $23 to $30 a week; for two persons in a room, $3.00 to $4.00 a day, or $20 to $25 a 
week. Camp Ahwahnee is situated at the foot of Sentinel Rock. It is well managed by 
W. M. Sell, and offers an excellent table with clean, roomy floored tents at $3.00 to $3.75 
a day, or $17.50 to $22.75 a week. Camp Lost Arrow, near the foot of Yosemite Falls, 
W. M. Sell, Jr., manager, is a popular resort at $2.50 a day or $15 a week. 

Camp Curry, D. A. Curry, proprietor, at the upper end of the valley, is the largest 
and best known of the camps. Its structures include oflfices, dining rooms, steam 
laundry, bakery, bath house, swimming pool, etc. Comfortable tents are provided for 
1,000 guests. Rates, $2.50 a day, or $15 weekly. At Glacier Point, overlooking 
Yosemite and Little Yosemite, W. M. Sell, Jr., conducts a hotel and camp. Rates, $2.50 
to $4.00 a day. 

Free sites are designated by the Superintendent in different parts of the valley for 
parties wishing to establish temporary private camps. Cut firewood may be bought from 
the Superintendent. Tents, camp outfits, groceries and other supplies, as well as outfits 




Dfl I'orliil, the Yosemite Valley KaiUviiy I'oiiipniiy'M nttrat-tive lititol at I'A l'<>rt:il. 



144 



NOTES 



for High Sierra trips, are obtainable from the well-stocked general store of W. D. 
Thornton in Yosemite. Thornton's store is also the post office. A bakery and confec- 
tioner's shop, meat market, laundry, telegraph and express office, with several photo- 
graphic and art studios, will be found in the village. 

Carriages from the hotel and camps to all parts of the valley, and horses and guides 

for the trails, are supplied by 
J. W. Coffman, under regula- 
tion of the Superintendent, at 
whose office the authorized 
rates may be obtained. Ar- 
rangements and prices should 
be made in advance through 
the hotel or camp management. 




Camp Curry, deliglitfully situ- 
ated among tlie pines at the 
foot of Glacier Point one mile 
from Happy Isles. This is the 
largest of the tourist camps in 
Voseniite Valley. The little 
Douglas squirrels are common 
throughout the Park. 

Wawona and the Mariposa 
Grove. — Transportation from 
Yosemite to Wawona, 2 6 miles, and thence to the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, is by the 
automobile stages of the Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Company. Rates, Yosemite to 
Wawona, |6.50, round trip, $13; Yosemite to Mariposa Grove, $7.50, round trip, $15. 
Transportation, Yosemite to Glacier Point by stage, via Inspiration Point and Chinquapin, 
$6.50 each way. At Wawona, the Wawona Hotel is one of the best kept mountain inns in 
America; rates from $3.50 to $4.50 a day. 

Automobiles. — Automobiles are now admitted to the Park. Good roads from Stock- 
ton, Modesto and Merced, in the San Joaquin Valley, lead to the west boundary of the 
Park, connecting with the Coulterville and Big Oak Flat roads. Automobiles are per- 
mitted to enter the Park over either of these roads, but east of the Merced Grove they 
are limited to the Coulterville road as far as Big Meadows, whence they may either pro- 
ceed directly to Yosemite, or take the new road via El Portal. A fee of $5.00 is charged 
for permit. Garage and automobile-camp sites are provided in the valley. For regula- 
tions apply to the Superintendent. 

Literature. — The useful pamphlet, General Information Begarding Tosemite National 
Pari-, may be had gratis at the office of the Superintendent in Yosemite Village, or by 
mail from the Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C. It contains brief notes on 
the Park and its administration; altitudes, distances, trails, etc.; size of Big Trees in 
Mariposa Grove; rules and authorized rates of transportation; hotels, camps, and camp- 



NOTES 



^4S 



ing outfits; automobile regulations; and a bibliography of books and important magazine 
articles. Two other government pamphlets are for sale at the Superintendent's office: 
Sketch of Yosemite National Park, a popular account of Yosemite geology by F. E. Matthes, 
of the U. S. Geological Survey, price 10 cents; and The Secret of the Big Trees, by Ells- 
vi'orth Huntington, price 5 cents. Foley's Yosemite Souvenir, a handy pocket guide, may be 
purchased at J. D. Foley's studio in the village. 

Of the earlier books, Dr. L. H. Bunnell's Discovery of Yosemite, 1880, 4th ed., 1911, is 
the best account of the Indian war of 1851 and the visits of the Mariposa Battalion. The 
last edition is handsomely illustrated from photographs by Boysen. In the Heart of the 
Sierras, by J. M. Hutchings, 188 6, is a history of the valley by one of its earliest residents. 
Prof. J. D. Whitney's The Yosemite Guide-Book, 18 71, despite its obsolete theory of the 
valley's origin, is a very readable and informing essay. Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, 
1871, by Clarence King, who was Whitney's associate in the geological survey of Cali- 
fornia, is one of the best books inspired by the mountains of the West. 

Three booklets, Indians of Yosemite Valley, 1904; The Big Trees of California, 1907; 
and The Yosemite Valley, 1910, by Galen Clark, discoverer of the Mariposa Grove and 
long the guardian of Yosemite under the state regime, contain much first-hand informa- 
tion. The fullest and most valuable description of the Park, with its glaciers, past and 
present; its forests, flowers, birds and animals, is of course, John Muir's Yosemite^ 1912. 
Muir's other books. My First Summer in the Sierra, 1911; The Mountains of California, en- 
larged ed., 1913; and Our National Parks, 1909, are also full of Yosemite. Naturalist and 
geologist as he is, Mr. Muir, rather than Joaquin Miller, has been the real poet of the 
Sierra, though he writes in prose. His books are after all not so much treatises on its 
natural history as delightful interpretations of its spirit. Yosemite Trails, 1911, by J. 
Smeaton Chase, is an enjoyable account of the Yosemite uplands, especially useful on 
their trees and flowers. Mr. Chase's little manual, Cone-Bearing Trees of the California 
Mountains, 1911, will also be found of service. 

The standard handbook on the botany of the Park is A Yosemite Flora, 1912, by 
Prof. Harvey M. Hall and Carlotta C. Hall. Untechnical in style and excellently illus- 
trated, with keys for identifying the trees and flowers, this accurate manual is invaluable 

for field work. Prof. Willis Linn Jepson's The Trees 
of California, 1909, is well planned for laymen's use, 
and capitally illustrated. It is not to be confused 
with his monumental and technical Silva of California, 
published by the University of California. Supple- 
menting these popular handbooks, Sudworth's Forest 
Trees of the Pacific Slope, 1908, published by the U. S. 
Forest Service, covers the Sierra forests with the 
same thoroughness given to the rest of its subject. 
The nine volumes of the Sierra Club Bulletin con- 
tain a store of papers by experts, covering not only 
the Yosemite country, but also the great mountains 
of the Kings and Kern River basins. These admirably 
edited publications, with a considerable library of 
other mountain literature, may be consulted at the 
Sierra Club's headquarters, the LeConte Memorial 
Lodge, near Camp Curry. In the general periodicals 
of this country and Europe, Yosemite and Hetch 
Hetchy Valleys have received more attention than 
any other American scenic district, and many note- 
„. . . , ., ^ . , „. worthy articles may be found through the periodical 

WntchlUK <lie Siiui-inc at Mirror •' = i 

, j,,-g indexes and magazine files at the public libraries. 





FRODI YOSEMITE VALLEY TO VVAWONA AND THE MARIPOSA GROVE. 



1. 


Mt. Raymond (EL 


8,548 


ft.). 


17. 


u. 


Signal Peak, or Devil 


Peak (7,079). 


18. 


3. 


Wawona Point. 








19. 


4. 


Mariposa Grove. 








20. 


5. 


Wawona. 








21. 


6. 


Fish Hatchery. 








22. 


S. 


Eight Mile. 
Eleven Mile. 








23. 
24. 


». 


Chinquapin. 








25. 


lO. 


Grouse Creek. 








26. 


It. 


Fort Monroe. 








27. 


12. 


Inspiration Point, 








28. 


13. 


Artist Point. 








29. 


14. 


Old Inspiration Po 


int. 






30. 


15. 


Stanford Point. 








31. 


16. 


Crocker Point. 








32. 



DeTvey Point. 

Cathedral Rocks. 

Cathedral Spires. 

Taft Point. 

Sentinel Rock. 

Sentinel Dome. 

Union Point. 

Glacier Point. 

Sentinel Hotel, Yosemite Village. 

Lost Arrow Camp. 

Three Brothers. 

Camp Ab^^ahnee. 

EI Capltan. 

Lookout Point. 

Ostrander Lake. 

Crescent Lake. 



PRESS OF 

THE BLAIR-MUROOCK COMPANY 

SAN FRANCISCO 



INDEX 

Figures in light face type refer to the text, those in heavier type to illustrations. 



"Ah-wali-ncc," 3 6 

Asjicn I'orcst, S)2 

Automobiles, 62. 1-14 

l!;iiiner, Mt., Itli 

l!(.-nson Lake, 111- 

Itcusun Pass. lliO, 12 1, 110 

I'.ergschruiul, lOil, 110. HI4 

I'.ig Oak Flat Roail. 62, !i'.i 

P.loocly Canon, 4,5, 44. 4.";, KM) 

Uridal \'eil Fall, 66, 76, 20, «« 

Bridal \'eil Meadow, ii'S 

Hroderick, Mt., 86, «.S 

Bunnell, Dr. L. II., 44, 54, 145 

Buttercups, 33 

Camps, Alnvahnee, Curry, and 

Lost Arrow, 143, 144 
Cascade Falls, (15 
"Cataract of Diamonds," .S3 
Cathedral Creek Falls. 11« 
Cathedral Peak, 30, 107 
Cathedral Rocks. 62. 9 0. 1!>, (i!) 
Chase, J. Smeaton. 63, 14 5 
Chilnualna Falls, 02 
Cirques, 79. 109, 110, 4.">, 100, 

114 
Clark, Galen. 145, .10, 74, 142 
Clark, Mt., 82, 7, 22, 31, 68, S3, 

03, 1)5, JM>, US 
Clouds Rest, 94, 7, 42, OS, S5 
Colby :Mtn., .^5 

Cold Canon Meadows. 12 4, 40 
Colorado Canon. 25, 92 
Conncss, John, 56 
Conness, Mt.. 10<! 
Dana, Mt., 117, 120, 33, 3!), ICT; 

Glacier, 100 
Domes, 2S. 30, !M) 
Donohue Pass. !>«, 101 
Eagle Peak. 27, OS 
Echo Peak, 104 
El Capitan, 36, 00. 92. 23, 47, 07, 

OS; Moraine, 66-72 
Eleanor Canon. 12.S, 134 
Eleanor Lake, 131 
Electra Peak, 102 
Fairview Dome, 106. 116. 107, 110 
"Fallen Monarch," SO 
Firs. White, 138, 3S; Red, 126, 

138, 13!>. 141 
Fissures. The. 92 
Five-Finger Falls, 131 
Florence. Mt.. 31, 3S 
Forests. 29, 32, 34, 131, 134, 137, 

142, 01; see Sequoias 
Gannett. Dr. Ilenrv. quoted, 110 
Geikie, Sir Archibald, 110 
Gibl.s. Mt., 117, 33, Ifl.l 
Glaciers, 26-32. 67-92, 100, 104 
Glacier Landscape. 22 
Glacier National Park. 25 
Glacier Point, 91, 93, J», 31, ."57, 

7r>, 76, SS 
Glen .\ulin. 117 
"Governor Tod" Group. 32 
"Grizzly Giant," 46, 136 
Guides. 143 
Half Dome, 92. 0, 2S, 42. 40, 51, 

60, 61. <SS, 73, SO. S7. SS 
Hall, II. M. an.l C. C. 145 
Happy Isles, 34. 41, 7!) 
Hcinlocks. Mountain, 09 
Hetch TIetchv, 29. 3 2, 88, 117, 

120 134. .36. .'.S. 11.-;, 12.->, 127, 

12S. 131, 132, 1.13. IH5 
Hoffman. Mt., 79, 88, 93, 17, 45, 

1)0, 104 
Illilouctte Fall, 82, 7S 
Illilouette Watershed, 82, 22 



Indians, Vosemite, 36, 38, 49, 52. 

26. 43, .•".2, .-4 
Inspiration Point, 63 
lack Main Canon, 10 
Jepson, Prof. W. L.. 14 5 
Jeffcry Pine, 138, ,S.3, !l(l. 01 
"Jointing," 72, 90,. 9 2, 72 
Johnson, Willard, 110 
Johnson Peak, 04 
King. Clarence, 145 
"King of the Forest," 139-14 2, 

141 
Kolana Rock, 115, 126, 12S 
Kuna Crest, 35, 3S, 44, OS, 00, 

114 
Lakes, glacial, 29, 33. 70-72, 100 
Lambert Dome, 33, 108, 116, lO.S, 

116 
Le Conte Memorial Lodge, SO 
Leopard Lily, 72 
Liberty Cap, 86, 31, 6.S, S3 
Little Hetch Hetchy, 126 
Little Yosemite, 85, 7, 20. 31, 6S, 

S3, S5 
Long Mtn., 34 
Lookout Point, 52 
Lost Arrow, 92, 70; Trail, 61 
Lyell Fork of Tuolumne, .3S. OS 
Lyell Glacier, 104 
Lvell. Mt.. 116. 120, 7, 25. 3S. 06, 

100, 101, 103, 113 
Lvman. Prof. W. I)., 30 
Madera, Cal., 4 8 
Mammoth Mtn.. 33 
Mariposa Battalion. 4 8 
Mariposa Grove, 57, 137, 32, 37, 

.56, 136, 137 
Marijiosa Lilv, 140 
Matterhorn Canon, 120. 124, 109 
^latthes, Francois E.. 88, 110, 145 
McClure. Mt., 14. 25, .SS 
Merced Canon, 87. 7. 31, 76. .SO 
Merced Lake, 85, 98, 103. .SO 
Merced River, 25, 64-66. 70, 100, 

52. 61, 64, 6,S, 69, 79, 138 
Mirror Lake, 87, .5.3, 145 
Mono Craters, 105; Lake. 117,44 
Mono Pass, 43, 44. 45, 00 
:\!uir Gorge, 3.5, 124, 125 
Muir, John, 36, 58, 93, 113, 145, 

46, .5S 
Nevada Fall, 82-4, 31, 6S, .S2 
North Dome. 2S, 34, 42, 51, 67, 

6S, 90, 126 
Oaks, black. 134. 70. Maul, 140 
Parsons Peak. 38. 98 
Parsons Memorial Lodge, 117 
Passes, 109, 04, 95, 99. 102. 110 
Phlox, .S7 
Pine. Sugar, 138, 40; Tamarack. 

138; Yellow, 137-8. 134 
Piute Canon. 126; :Mtn.. 114 
Pleasant Valley. 126 
Poliono. see Bridal \'eil Fall 
Polcmonium. 43 
Portal, El. G4-5, 143 
Potter Point. 3S, OS 
Primrose, Evening, 73 
Rancheria :Mtn. 124. 126. 127 
Ranier National Park, 2 5, 29 
Ritter, Mt.. 112 
Roads. 98-9 

Rodgers Lake. 126. 17, 123 
Rodgers Peak, 102 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 58, 46 
Roval .\rches, 92, 128, S, 51, 5.5, 

OS 
Sardine Lake, 45 



Savage, Maj. James D., 43, 48-52 
Seavey Pass, 1 14 
Sentinel Dome, 00, 91 
Sentinel Hotel, 143 
Sentinel Rock, 92. 21, 47 
Sequoias. 3 4. 138, 113 

Mariposa Grove, 137, 37, 56, 
SO, 136, 137, 139, 141, 142 
Merced Grove, 65, 2 

Tuolumne Grove, 65, 139, 129 
Sierra Club. 98, 109, 113-16, 145 

7, II, 14, SO, 122, 123 
Smedberg Lake, 124 
Smith Peak, 11.5, 127, 131 
-Snow Creek l'\ills, 2(t 
Snow Plant, 110 
Soda Springs, 98. 106. 1 13 
Spermophiles, 117 
Tenava Canon. 87, 88, 2S, 42, 

49, 51, .53, 59, 68 
Tenaya Glacier, 88 
Tenaya, Indian Chief, 43, 45, 48, 

49, 52-6 
Tenaya Lake, 55, 87, 30, 4,8, 50, 

108 
Tenaya Peak, 4S 
Three Brothers. 54, 92, 27, 67 
Tilden Lake, 29 
Tioga Lake, 39 
Tioga Road, 79. 98, 106, 115, 

116. 4.5, 10.S, 110 
Triple Divide Peak. 93 
Trout, 102, 104, 1.37 
Trails. 93, 100, 106. 109, 144, SS 
Transportation. 143 
Tueeulala Falls. 128 
Tuolumne Canon. 113. 121. 122, 

125, 126. 22, .3.5, 110, 124 
Tuolumne Falls, 122. US 
Tuolumne Glacier, 87, 106 
Tuolumne Meadows. 105. 115-120, 

11, 107. 1(18. 114, 116 
Tuolumne Pass, 04 
Tuolumne River, 25, 2.5, 127, 

131, 1.35 
Twin Lake. 29 
Tnicorn Peak. 104, 107 
I'nion Point. 90. 47 
\ernal Fall, 82-3, 31, 6.S, 77, SI, 

82 
\irginia Canon. 122 
\'ogelsang Pass. 95, OS 
Walker, Capt. Tos. R., 40, 4 6 
Walker Lake. 44 
^^'apama Falls, 12S 
Washburn Lake, 86, 103, .34, 94 
Washington Column, 92, 42, 51 
Waterfalls. 29. 33. 76. 79 
Waterwheel Falls. 122. 120, 121 
Watkins. Mt., 87, .53, 68 
Wawona, 61, 62. 143, 62. 63. 138. 

146 
White Cascade. 122, 25 
Whitney. Josiah D., 67, 72, 145 
Wilmer Lake, 10 
Yellowstone National Park. 25 
YoseiTiite, name, 48 



-Creek. 79, 80 
-Falls, 80, 81, 



l.S. 24, OS. 71. 



-Lake, 70, 74 
-National Park, 

58, 96 
-Point, 90. 93, 
Trail. 18. 46. 
-Vallev. 29. 32. 61, 65, 

16, 46, 47, «.S, 75 



17. 



OS 
68 



26, 56, 



ftyso 



nend 




The following maps, at the prices given, may be obtained from the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey, 
Washington, D. C, or at the office of the Superintendent of the Park in Yosemite Village: 

Map of Yosemite National Park, 2834 x 27 inches, scale 2 miles to the inch. Price, 50 cents a copy flat; 55 cent» 
a copy folded and bound between covers. 

Map of Yosemite Valley, 35 x 15^ inches, scale 2,000 feet to the inch. Price, 20 cents. 

Panoramic view of Yosemite National Park, i8j4 x 18 inches, scale 3 miles to the inch. Price, 25 cents. 




DUAWM BY CUKIS JOKGENSEH 



COPVUIGIIT, 1914. »» Jo"" *'■ W1U.I, 



Key to Outline Map of Yosemite Valley and Adjacent Peaks, with Elevations of Principal Landmarks. 

Note: The elevations given below are from the maps of the United StateUeological Survey. These maps do not always agree one with ^"^^f'^';' ^"^ J"^^" ^^ 
the same map sHght differences between the legend and bench-mark figures are sfi)metimes found. Such variations, however, are mconsideraDie, "^^^ /"""^ 
feet. Where they occur, the authority of the latest map, the "Panoramic View/of the Yosemite National Park," has as far as possible been lo'iowe . ^ ■ , „ t^ 

The figures indicate height above sea-level. For height above the floor c5f Yosemite Valley, deduct 3,960 feet, the elevation of the pier near 
In the case of waterfalls, the height, or "drop," of each is given, as well as its elefvation above sea-level. 



1. Artist Point, 4,701 feet. 

2. Inspiration Point, 5,391. 

3. Old Inspiration Point, 6,603. 

4. Stiintoid Point. 6,659. 

5. Crocker Point, 7,090. 

6. Dewey Point, 7,316. 

7. Bridal Veil Fall, top, 4,787; drop, 620. 
S. Cathedral Rocks, 6,638. 

9. Cathedral Spires, 6,114. 

10. Tatt Point. 7,503. 

11. The Fissures. 

12. Sentinel Rock, 7,046. 

13. Union Point, 6,314. 

14. Glacier Point, 7.214. 

15. Sentinel Dome. 8,117. 

16. Olacler Point Hotel. 



17. Vernal Fall, top, 5,049; drop, 317. 

18. Panorama Cliff. 6,224. 

19. Illllouette Fall, top, 5,816; drop, 370. 

20. Nevada Fall, top, 6,910; drop, 594. 

21. Mt. Broderick, 6,705. 

22. Liberty Cap, 7,072. 

28. Little Yosemite, 6.150. 

24. Mt. Starr King, 9,181. 

25. Mt. Clark, 11,500. 

26. Foerster Peak, 12,062. 

27. Electra Peak, 12,462. 

28. Rodgers Peak, 13,006. 

29. Mt. Lyell, 13,090. 

30. Mt. McClure. 

31. Mt. Florence, 12,507. 

32. Half Dome. 8.852. 



33. Clouds Rest, 9,924. 

34. Parker Peak, 12,850. 

35. Glbbs Mountain, 12,700. 

36. Tenaya Peak, 10,200. 

37. Mt. Watklns, 8,235. 

38. Indian Rock. 8.526. 

39. Basket Dome, V.602. 

40. Leaning Tower. 5,863. 

41. North Dome, 7,531. 

42. Washington Column, 5,912. 

43. Mirror Lake, 4,096. 

44. Camp Curry. 
46. Kennyville. 

46. Royal Arches, 5,500. 

47. Indian Camp. 

48. Camp Lost Arrow. 



49 Camp Yosemite (Military). 

50. Yosemite Point, «,936. 

51. Yosemite Falls: Top of Upper Fa . 

6.525; drop, 1.430. Top of Lrfjwer Fall, 
4,420; drop, 320. 

li. ^rle^B^roTher.. 7.773 (Eagl. Peak) 
64 EI Capltan: Brow, 7,042; summit, 7,B«4. 
Se Ribbon Fall, top. 7,008; drop, 1.812 . 
66. Sentinel Hotel. Yosemite Village, 8,984. 

57. Camp Ahwahnee. 

58. Garage. 

59. Lake Tenaya, 8.1<o- r» 
60 Dana Mountain, 13,060. 





L 



16. Glacier Point Hotel, 



